#pneumonia fic

[mellaithwen]

Seven Sentence Sunday

Thank you for tagging me @rewritetheending <33 this isn't from....either of the fics I've been sharing lately :)

“Are you crying over sharks?” Eddie asks from the doorway of the hospital room, catching a glimpse of whatever documentary Buck's watching on his iPad today. Buck rolls his eyes, inadvertently dislodging another rogue tear as he takes a moment to catch his breath before explaining.

“The baby reef sharks are huddled together in a nursery, and—the bigger shark is like—protecting them with his fins and—”

Buck sniffs loudly, careful not to dislodge the oxygen cannula as he goes. He lets out a self-deprecating laugh, breathless though it may be, and Eddie can hear the wheeze that’s there.

“It’s just the painkillers,” Buck reasons finally, even though his eyes are still glistening from the emotional response. And the pain, Eddie thinks, but doesn’t say.

& i shall tag with no pressure at all @homerforsure @princessfbi @renecdote @fcntasmas @nymika-arts @buttercupbuck @tripleaxeldiaz @capseycartwright @henswilsons @lovebuck @shortsighted-owl @like-the-rest-of-la @buckactuallys @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels @woodchoc-magnum @captain-hen @zainclaw and @littlespoonevan <33

#I'm....99% sure I haven't shared this before but IF I HAVE I'M SORRY #pneumonia fic #911 #911fic #911 fanfiction #seven sentence sunday #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie #911 on fox #911 on abc #911 abc #911 fox #mellaithwen fanfic

[shion-yu]

A Safe Place (part 3) [day 18]

A feverish Cliff is seen in the emergency room. For @monthofsick Day 18 “Unfamiliar surroundings”. 2,965 words, original work, TWs emeto, hospital content.

Part 1 | Part 2 - I swear this was supposed to be 2 parts but now it’s gonna be 4? Lol whoops.

Elliot supported Cliff into the busy ER. It was a Saturday, of course there were a lot of people there, Elliot thought regretfully. Silly to hope otherwise. Elliot eased Cliff into a seat as close to the reception desk as possible and then checked Cliff in, presenting Cliff’s ID and health insurance card. He was grateful Cliff’s wallet and phone were the two things his boyfriend had actually brought with him when he left his parents’ house, although a jacket and his inhaler would have been useful third and fourth choices.

“What’s this visit for?” The receptionist asked after scanning the cards and handing them back to Elliot.

“My boyfriend is having trouble breathing,” Elliot said, hoping this concerned her as much as it concerned him. “He has asthma, he’s wheezing, and he has a high fever. He didn’t know who I was earlier.”

The receptionist stood up a little to catch a glimpse of Cliff in his seat, who did look like he was struggling. “Okay, we’ll get him triaged as soon as possible,” the receptionist said. Elliot chose to believe her for his own sanity’s sake. “In the meantime, have him wear a mask.”

Cliff sagged against Elliot when Elliot sat next to him. He was in no shape to do paperwork, so Elliot tried to fill it out as much as he could. Fifteen minutes passed. Cliff was whimpering in pain and his wheeze had grown louder. “Just a few more minutes, Cliffy,” Elliot said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. Thirty minutes passed. Cliff was now insisting he was fine after all, and that they ought to go home. But that was when he was lucid, which would last only a minute before he’d follow up by saying something that made very little sense and reminded Elliot exactly why they couldn’t leave. Finally, about forty minutes after they’d checked in, a nurse called Cliff’s name and brought them to a small room between the waiting room and the actual ER. Elliot repeated the story he’d given the receptionist although more aggressively this time as the nurse nodded and took Cliff’s vitals.

Elliot never wanted Cliff to be so sick. However, his vitals did prompt some action and for that Elliot was grateful. Cliff’s fever was 103.5 now, his oxygen running lower than expected at 92%, and his heart rate and blood pressure were both high. The nurse led them to a stretcher in a curtained off bay and told Cliff to change into a gown. Elliot had to help Cliff climb up, his boyfriend’s coordination poor. His hands were shaking too hard to button his own gown up, so Elliot did it for him.

“Don’t feel good,” Cliff mumbled, swaying even as he sat up on the stretcher.

“I know, just lie back,” Elliot said. “They’re gonna help you.”

Thankfully, this time they only waited about ten minutes before a new nurse came in with a small bucket full of supplies. She introduced herself as Anna and said she was going to insert an IV, take some blood, and hook Cliff up to oxygen and fluids. She was also going to swab Cliff for flu and strep, but Elliot explained the urgent care had already done that. “Well, this tests for some other stuff too, it’s a full respiratory panel. I’d recommend we just do it anyways.” Elliot agreed on Cliff’s behalf; Cliff seemed to be communicating only in nods at this point.

Nurse Anna looped some oxygen tubing over Cliff’s ears first and plugged it into the wall. She also attached a blood pressure cuff and oxygen probe that she said would stay on for now for monitoring. Elliot felt like all the devices only made Cliff look sicker. Anna swabbed Cliff’s nose, which made him cough harshly to the point of gagging, and then got ready to insert an IV.

Cliff looked to Elliot in panic, swallowing rapidly. ‘Faint,’ he mouthed to Elliot helplessly. “Um, I think he passes out when there’s needles,” Elliot spoke up for him. Cliff nodded gratefully.

“Well you’re in the right place if you do,” Nurse Anna said. She lowered the head of the stretcher and told Elliot to hold Cliff’s hand as she looked for a vein in his other arm. “I’ll go super quick,” she reassured them, and she was right. It was quick. But Cliff turned sheet white and got really sweaty and by the time she’d collected enough tubes of blood, flushed and secured the hub and hooked him up to a bag of fluids, Cliff was barely conscious. “Don’t worry, it happens,” she said. She put a pillow under Cliff’s legs and told him to breathe deeply through his nose. Elliot found her calm demeanor the only thing keeping him calm, because it seemed terrifying even if it was normal. Cliff followed her directions and eventually gained some color back. Anna said his blood pressure was coming back up and that he should just lie there with his feet up for a few more minutes, then left the room.

“I’m sorry,” Cliff apologized miserably for the tenth time since they’d come back here.

“Baby, please, stop apologizing,” Elliot told him. “You’re here because you have to be and you’re not doing anything bad or wrong. Just rest.”

Cliff’s eyes filled with tears and he covered them with his forearm. “I suck,” he whimpered, Elliot’s words clearly not having reached him as intended. Elliot sighed and put one hand on Cliff’s head to stroke his sweaty hair. It wasn’t worth fighting Cliff on this right now. Elliot just had to be there for him.

Cliff fell asleep to Elliot’s relief. Elliot texted his mom what was going on and hoped this wasn’t as bad as it felt. Cliff snored quietly until a woman came with a huge portable x-ray machine. “Sorry to wake you up,” she said, “Cliff? I’m here to get your x-ray. I’ll go fast.”

Cliff opened his eyes and stared blankly at her. Elliot wasn’t sure if Cliff knew what was going on at this point so he stroked Cliff’s arms and explained, “Cliff? She’s gonna take the pictures of your lungs now.” He helped the x-ray tech manipulate Cliff’s torso so that he was lying on a hard board. Elliot stood in the doorway while they did the films.

“Alright, take a nice deep breath for me and hold it,” the x-ray tech said. “I know, good job, got it. You can cough.” And cough Cliff did, that same desperate wet cough that had made Elliot’s mind up to bring him here. He managed to catch his breath, but it wasn’t over. “One more,” the tech said, moving the boards and machine around to point at Cliff’s side now. “Again. Deep breath. One, two, and good. Let it out.”

This time Cliff didn’t seem able to stop coughing. He coughed until each gasp sounded like a Herculean struggle and Elliot wasn’t sure that any of that air he was gulping in was actually reaching his lungs. The machine that was measuring Cliff’s oxygen levels started to beep and the tech told Elliot she was going to find the nurse. Elliot held on to Cliff and tried to soothe him, but it didn’t seem to work. Cliff just kept coughing until suddenly his eyes flew open and he spewed a sharp wave of vomit from his mouth all the way to the end of the stretcher. Elliot winced, pulling back and trying not to look at the mess. Cliff spluttered and coughed between additional harsh gags that produced little besides a stream of thick brown saliva that pooled in his lap. Elliot prayed the nurse would come in soon and hesitantly rubbed Cliff’s back. He didn’t know what to do and Cliff seemed frozen, unable to lift his head or close his mouth.

Thankfully the nurse showed up then and said, “Oh no!” Oh no was right, Elliot thought anxiously. “Did we just get coughing too hard?” She glanced at Cliff's oxygen levels and turned a small green dial on the wall, which made a quiet hissing noise for a second as the flow of oxygen increased. “Don’t worry hun, we’re going to get you cleaned up.” She found a change of sheets in one of the cupboards behind the stretcher and changed the blankets and top sheet in record time. She checked Cliff’s fluids which were nearly done and then charted standing in the room for a few minutes on her rolling computer.

Cliff was silent, hunched over holding a pink plastic basin in his lap in case of another incident, and Elliot couldn’t tell if he was just out of it or humiliated. The room still smelled of putrid stomach acid; Elliot breathed through his mouth. His phone dinged in his pocket and he saw an alarmed text from his mother. He didn’t have time to reply though, as the doctor walked in at that moment.

“Doctor Jim,” Anna greeted him politely, scooting her computer farther away from the bedside. “He just threw up coughing and I turned up his oxygen.”

“I’m not surprised,” Dr. Jim said. He looked to be in about his forties, was mostly bald and had tiny round glasses that looked too small for his face. “Cliff? I’m Jim, I’m a physician here. How are you doing today?”

Elliot thought that was a stupid question. Cliff looked at Dr. Jim with hazy eyes and mumbled, “Sick.”

“Well, that makes sense. You’ve got yourself a nasty case of double pneumonia,” Dr. Jim said. Elliot’s heart sank. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

Cliff shook his head no. He moved his hand to the edge of the bed that Elliot understood as a silent signal to hold it, which he did. “Well, I think it’s best if we admit you for observation overnight with the vitals you have. I’m going to order two IV antibiotics and some steroids, try and get that swelling down in your lungs and hopefully you’ll be feeling better in no time. How’s that sound?”

Cliff didn’t answer. “That sounds fine,” Elliot said, squeezing Cliff’s hand. “Can I stay with him?”

“Once we move him to the floor, visiting hours are eight to eight,” Dr. Jim said. “But you can stay with him for as long as he’s in the ER.” He turned to Anna and gave a few other orders for Zofran, Tylenol, albuterol and budesonide treatments. It all seemed so casual to them, but Elliot was still disturbed by how sick Cliff looked and seemed to him.

Dr. Jim physically examined Cliff next. Cliff shuddered and Dr. Jim apologized for his cold hands, but Elliot knew that the temperature hadn’t had anything to do with it. He hummed a lot, wrote down some notes, and then left with a “Hope you feel better soon.” Elliot wondered if he told all his patients that, or just the ones who could actually get better soon. Nurse Anna also excused herself to get the ordered medications, leaving Elliot alone with Cliff once again.

“So… pneumonia. That sounds pretty bad,” Elliot said. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt so sick?”

“You were at work. I didn’t want to bother you,” Cliff said in a tiny voice. “And then I tried to text you but none of the letters in my phone made sense.”

Elliot felt his chest clench painfully hearing that. “Cliff, you wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“But I’m bothering you now,” Cliff whimpered.

Elliot frowned. “I didn’t say that.” Silence from Cliff. Elliot sighed and grasped Cliff’s hand in his own. “Cliff, Cliffy, can you look at me?” It took a second, but fever-bright, hazel eyes eventually focused on Elliot. “You’re my boyfriend. I want you to be okay. Can you at least try to trust me?”

“I do trust you,” Cliff whispered, voice hurt.

“Then let me care about you.”

Cliff fell quiet again and Elliot sat back but kept Cliff’s hand in his. Cliff had his eyes closed, but it didn’t do much to hide the tears that escaped from the corners of them. Elliot didn’t say anything, just brushed them off of Cliff’s cheeks with his sleeve. Once Cliff was asleep, Elliot finally allowed his own silent tears to fall.

Eventually a CNA came to bring Cliff down to the short-stay unit. She rolled Cliff’s stretcher down the hall and into an elevator. Cliff looked nervous and kept glancing at Elliot, making sure he was still right next to him. Elliot always was. They got to a small room that had a real hospital bed in it and the CNA and Elliot both helped Cliff take two steps from the stretcher onto the bed. It was painful for Elliot to see how difficult even this brief transfer was for Cliff, and Cliff started another one of his long coughing spasms afterwards. Elliot rubbed Cliff’s arm, unsure what else he could possibly do to help. “Water,” Cliff croaked hoarsely between deep, rattling coughs.

“Sure. Um…” Elliot looked around him but this room was barely more than an ER bay. It didn’t even have windows. “Let me go check,” he said, and went to go look for the nurse’s station. There were two tired and rather bored looking, middle aged women sitting at computers at the end of the hall. “Excuse me? My boyfriend just got here and he could use some water…”

“I’m almost there,” one of the nurses said, which Elliot thought was a weird thing to say when she very much wasn’t almost there. Regardless, they didn’t seem to like him hovering very much so Elliot went back to Cliff’s room. There was nowhere for him to sit, so he stood at the bedside. Cliff had managed to stop coughing at least.

The nurse, despite her indifferent demeanor, did show up with a little bin that contained hospital socks, meds and a large plastic jug of water. “Clifford Barrows, hmm? I’m Carey. And you are…?” She raised an eyebrow at Elliot.

Suddenly feeling extra protective, Elliot quickly said, “His boyfriend.”

“Alright. Mr. Barrows, are you okay to have Elliot in here?”

Cliff nodded a yes. Elliot thought it was so weird to hear Cliff called by his last name. They seemed too young for that.

“Well, your boyfriend will have to leave after I finish this admission paperwork as visiting hours are over soon, but remind me to get you a chair for tomorrow,” Carey said. She started a myriad of questions, which included Cliff’s emergency contact.

“Make it Elliot,” Cliff said quickly, looking at him. “Um, will my dad know I’m here?”

“You’re eighteen, right? Not unless you tell him,” Carey said. “But I see your dad is the primary insurance holder so he may see the invoice after you’re discharged. It shouldn’t show any details though.”

Cliff grimaced but nodded. At least there would be no confrontation in the actual hospital, Elliot thought to himself. Carey kept asking questions, which ranged from did Cliff smoke to could he walk up a flight of stairs to did he have any plans to hurt himself right now. They seemed a little ridiculous to Elliot, but Cliff was able to answer all of them with simple yes’s and no’s pretty quickly since he was for the most part entirely healthy.

“You’re easy,” Carey said, winking at Cliff. “Boyfriend? Visiting hours are over now honey, so you say your goodbyes and you can come back at 8am tomorrow morning.” Elliot thought she was kind of like those old ladies at diners who yelled at you for your order but called you honey so you couldn’t feel totally attacked.

He nodded and gave Cliff a quick hug. He thought about kissing him, but Cliff didn’t like to be kissed in front of other people so he just squeezed Cliff’s hand instead. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he promised. “Get some rest and tell them if you don’t feel good, okay?”

“Okay,” Cliff said. He looked scared, so Elliot hugged him again and kissed the top of his head this time.

“I love you,” Elliot said. “I know you can be strong for me. You’ve got your phone right here.”

Elliot didn’t look back as he left, because he could feel Cliff’s kicked puppy expression trailing him and knew if he did, it would be ten times harder to leave. He walked to the parking lot without thinking, got in his car, and drove home without Cliff beside him. He made it to the park a block away from his parents’ house before he pulled over and cried for a solid ten minutes.

Cliff was going to be okay, Elliot told himself. Cliff was stronger than he seemed, and realistically Elliot couldn’t be there for him every second of the way. But he’d promised Cliff they weren’t going to the hospital, and then he promised Cliff that he’d be right there next to him the whole time. He’d broken both of these promises and now Cliff was sleeping in a hospital bed, in a tiny room with no windows and only a crotchety old lady to keep an eye on him. Elliot felt just terrible and wondered if he’d made the wrong choice dragging Cliff to the ER. All he wanted was for Cliff to be okay, though, and he really hadn’t seemed okay today.

Elliot wiped his tears away and told himself he had to be strong. This seemed so intense and adult, but Elliot couldn’t let it overwhelm him. He tried to remember the coping mechanisms his therapist had taught him back in high school. Deep breaths. One second at a time. He could do it, and so could Cliff. Elliot turned on the car and returned home by himself.

[Part 4]

#shionwrites #sickfic #illness whump #fever whump #oc: cliff #oc: elliot #whump #sicknario #sick whump #male whump #angst #hurt/comfort #novemetober rescheduled #prompt: unfamiliar surroundings #vomitting #emeto #tw: emeto #oc sickfic #pneumonia fic #flu whump

[secretobsessionstuff]

Jory is sick and ends up with a pretty bad fever, and his thoughts are so muddled that he doesn't remember at what point he stopped working, so Dev has to keep reassuring him that he didn't mess up anybody's tattoos?

Flick, you give the best prompts! I had lots of fun with this one because it's not my usual M.O. Less heavy on emeto.

----------------

With the stencil dry, Jory sat down to draw an owl on a man’s calf.

It had taken him a long time to finalize the design because he’d been fighting a cold for the past week, not to mention the back-and-forth emails between him and the client. The man’s name was Mason. He was a younger dude with a lot of real-estate for tattoos. 

Jory was happy about the placement and so was Mason. The calf was less painful than other areas so he hoped it would be a smooth process with the young guy. The session was likely to be chill because Mason planned to put in earbuds and watch a show. Jory wasn’t complaining about the lack of conversation. He wasn’t feeling up to talking. 

He cleared his throat to get rid of the tickle before speaking. “Alrighty Mace, I’ll get you to lie down on your stomach.” Even those few words were hard to get out. Jory ahem-ed again and it morphed into a wet cough. “Sorry ‘bout that. I’m just getting over a cold, but I can’t shake this cough.” 

“It’s all good.” 

“You should try having him as a roommate,” Dev interjected from across the room. They were meant to be supervising Jory’s tattoo…which they could totally do at the same time as updating the shop’s social medias. “It’s not all good when you share a wall and he’s coughing at fucking 4am.” 

“I told you I’m almost through this c—” Shouting across the room proved to be too difficult for his lungs, and Jory started coughing again. 

“Yeah, sounds like you’re so much better.” Dev sighed and pushed themselves away from the computer they were working at. They sauntered over to Jory’s station and handed him a medical mask. “Put this on or I will reschedule this session.” 

“Fine. Fine.” Jory put the mask on and started to untie the bandanna from around his head. He folded the paisley-patterned fabric into another face covering. “I’ll even double up if that’ll appease you…” Jory was going to call Dev oh, great supervisor or one true dictator but he was already winded from what little he said. 

As Jory bent forward to tattoo the first line, his back and shoulders ached. Great, two seconds in and he was already in need of a break. This was going to be a long session. 

The client watched an anime on his phone for an hour while Jory worked. He was glad not to be working too close to the man’s face because he never went long before the coughing started up again. 

One time he’d been tattooing a girl’s neck, but he kept burping when their faces were inches apart. He took many breaks during that session until his stomach settled down. It seemed he was going to have to take many breaks this time too, because the wheezing and crackling in his lungs was relentless. 

Usually, the client asks for the first break, but Mason was taking it like a champ; Jory was not doing as well. His chest burned as if an anvil was sitting on his rib cage. 

The pressure was so great that every inhale was a struggle. It felt like he couldn’t expand his chest wide enough to take in a proper breath. The medical mask was wet on the inside from the perpetual coughing. He could feel phlegm building up in his throat, but he wasn’t about to hack a glob of spit up in the middle of the shop. He just had to sit there and pretend that he wasn’t drowning. 

Eventually, Jory couldn’t take it any longer. He turned off the machine and peeled the latex gloves from his sweaty hands. He tapped Mason on his leg to get his attention. “You’re doing great, babes. Why don’t you take a break?” 

“I can keep going.” 

Jory grit his teeth. That was the wrong answer. He forced himself to stay calm. “We’ll start up again in five minutes. Get some water. Take a piss.” 

Jory walked away before Mason could say anything else. His hand tingled from the vibrations of the machine. He flicked his wrist, trying to bring feeling back into his fingers. The urge to cough scratched at his throat, but he forced himself to wait until he got to the employee bathroom. 

Walking was painful. Blinking was painful. His back twinged. His chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. What the duck was wrong with him? He thought he was getting over this cold, but this was worse than any other day. 

The lights in the bathroom dimmed as he stumbled his way to the sink. Finally, he let himself cough and cough until he thought he would tear a hole in the membrane of his lungs. He choked up a splodge of yellowish phlegm and spat it into the sink. 

When the coughing calmed down, Jory breathed hard. He lifted his head to look at himself in the mirror. His eyes burned and watered with an unnatural heat. Sweat coated his nose and brow, but that didn’t make any sense because he was freezing. Chills wracked his frame. 

A lot of things didn’t make sense just then the more he thought about it, like—oh wait he was back to coughing. He didn’t have the chance to think of anything because his whole body shook from the force of the hack. 

“Jory, what the fuck?” Dev suddenly shouted as they burst into the washroom. “You sound like you’re drowning in here.” 

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he replied with a hand over his eyes. He rubbed his thumb and finger into his eyeballs. He could have sworn that lava leaked from his dear ducts. “I—I don’t—Ugh—” Pause for a wet rattling cough. “—Gah Dev, my chest hurts. I can’t breathe.” 

Jory bunched up the fabric of his shirt in his hand as he tried to claw the pain away. He was so focused on the pressure in his body, that he didn’t realize that he was stumbling towards Dev. Before he knew it, he was falling into Dev’s arms. If he had a lick of sense in his foggy head, he might have been embarrassed. 

“Whoa, Fuck,” Dev said, catching him awkwardly. Bering this close to Jory, they could feel the heat coming off him. “Fucking hell, Jory, you’re on fire.”

“I—I don’t feel good,” Jory slurred out.

“No shit, your brain is being fried, dude.” 

Dev was still holding Jory when he began coughing again. They could hear pop rocks crackling in his chest with each harsh puff. 

If it wasn’t for Dev holding him up, Jory would have been knocked over by the severity of his coughing. He doubled over as the coughing turned into retches that grated up his throat. The mucus caught in his airway came up with the bile and sick in his stomach. 

Luckily there wasn’t much for him to throw up because Dev was the one who caught the gush with their body. They resisted the impulse to jump back as he retched again. They had to keep holding on or else Jory would be dealing with a concussion on top of whatever bioweapon infected his lungs. 

Eventually, Jory was able to catch his breath. He swayed on his feet, feeling horrendous. Was…was someone holding him? He was looking down at two pairs of feet. One was his own, and the other looked like Dev’s shoes. Was Dev holding him? No, that couldn’t be right. 

Besides, he was plummeting. Dev wouldn’t let him fall. But regardless, he felt like the floor was rushing up at him. It was coming fast. So fast. So—

Then nothing. Just nothing. He didn’t crack his teeth on the tiles. He was fine. But he was lying on the bathroom floor. Dev was gone. 

Jory blinked hard. He didn’t want to be alone. He couldn’t be alone. Someone had to pull him from the water when the waves came crashing back. The water levels were rising. He could feel it in his lungs. 

The bathroom door swung open again. Dev didn’t wait to lift him off the floor. They wrapped his arm around their shoulder and led him towards the back room and lowered him onto a leather couch. 

“Where’d you go?” he asked, letting his head fall against the couch’s arm rest. “You left me. I’m cold. You left me. Can I have a blanket?”

Dev was already in the process of draping a thin blanket over his body. It was the only blanket in the shop, but maybe that was good considering his temperature. “I asked Monty to clean up your station and send Mason home.”  

“Mason!” Jory shouted and shot up, flinging the blanket off.

“Whoa, whoa, easy.” Dev, ungracefully, pushed Jory back onto his back. The boy landed with a groan and (you’ll never guess it) started coughing again. They winced at the horrible sound. “Sorry.” They covered him back up with the blanket and slowly sat down on the edge of the couch. “Mason’s not your concern right now.” 

“I forgot the beak.” 

“What?” 

“The owl—I forgot its beak. What kind of owl doesn’t have a beak?” 

Dev pinched the bridge of their nose to hide a smirk. ‘You didn’t forget anything. Everything’s fine.” 

“And the shading. Dev, the shading!” Jory ranted while hugging the blanket to his chin. His eyes were wild and glassy. “Did I use .30 needles or .35? Was it magnums?” 

“Jory—” 

“Frick, I can’t remember—” More coughing caused tears to leak from his eyes. “—Ugh, my chest.” The sound of popping bubbles came from his lungs. “It’s all messed up. Mason’s gonna—” 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Dev said firmly. “You didn’t mess up the tattoo. You tapped out before you got this bad. It was a good job considering your fever. I was watching you the whole time.” 

As Dev said this, it dawned on them that they should have realized how sick Jory still was. They both let themselves believe that he was over his illness, but the worst was just getting started. 

As if to prove this point, Jory coughed so hard that it turned into a heave.

“Oh God, this again,” Dev said, awkwardly rubbing Jory’s arm. “You’re okay. Get it up. Fuck this blanket.” 

Jory bent forward with his head hanging over his lap. The muscles in his back spasmed. After three violent coughs, he choked up milky phlegm and yellow bile between his legs. It landed on the blanket as Dev predicted. 

Now Dev was rubbing his back for real. They clicked their tongue against their teeth as they watched him suffer through this hell. He was shaking uncontrollability for fuck’s sake. They had to help him better than this. “That’s it. I’m taking you to the hospital.” 

Jory moaned. “I don’t want to. I’m tired.” 

“Too bad. Monty bet me 20 bucks that it’s bronchitis. I say it’s pneumonia.” 

“What!” Jory’s voice cracked. “You’re betting on my suffering?”

“You’re damn right I am.” Dev helped him up from the couch. “And I’m going to win, so get your wheezy ass in the car.” 

#emeto #emeto fic #emetophilia #coughing #sickfic #pneumonia #pneumonia fic #illness #flu #flu fic #sick character #emeto fiction #whump #angst #hurt/comfort #h/c #vomiting fic #vomit fic #vomit kink #cold #Jory #Dev #fever #fever fic #delirium fic #delirium #emetophile #emetophiliac #puke with plot :) #puke without plot

[let-it-rip-bear]

WIP of a 'cover' for my pneumonia fic "did he jump or did he fall?'

summary:

"The urge to cough hits him like a train, forcing him to sit up in order to obey. Carmy does his best to take a deep breath before he lets out a long series of painful, deep, wet coughs. It’s starting to feel like he can’t breathe at all." Or: Carmy gets sick, and then sicker, and then really, really sick. It's as good a time as any for him to learn what it means to be taken care of.

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #carmy berzatto #my art #huh. didn't realize it looks like The Fallen Angel painting by Alexander Cabanel #yknow the one that's like the poster boy for the mentally ill LMAO #i've been doodling carmy's face a lot #every time i do i'm just muttering to myself 'does this man know. does JAW know how lucky he is' #'man was born with the looks of a greek youth that could break the gods' hearts' #it's just a sketch so don't come at me for the lack of tattoos pls ;-; #pneumonia fic #my fics #jj.post

[allthewhumpygoodness]

Big fan of when a character's grief/trauma/guilt manifests as physical symptoms. Big fan of characters keeping things so tight inside them that it makes them sick. Big fan of when the line blurs between a character's mental trauma and physical illness until it's hard to tell which is which anymore.

#whump #k once i did a fic where a character had pneumonia #and also was in Big Mental Distress and mentally going over all the people he'd lost in his life etc #and i gotta say i'm proud of myself for bringing up the recurrent motif of his chest being pianful...like is it from being sick & coughing #or bc he's grieving so badly it's putting him in physical pain #ANYWAY

[sortofanobsession]

could you maybe write a fic where Jamie gets sick at an away game— whether it be anxiety, food poisoning, flu, etc. Maybe he sicks up in the middle of the night and Dani or Sam (I imagine they room together and are best friends) go get Roy and he’s very very sweet in his own Roy way to Jamie and then the next day on the bus Jamie still doesn’t feel good so he snuggles into Roy in the back of the bus?

I literally love your work so much and would absolutely die if you wrote this (plus my birthday is coming up (Jan 25th) so this would be so epic to read then))

Happy Early Birthday, Anon!

Here is worried Roy Kent, sick and confused Jamie, amused Keeley, #1 nurse Phoebe, and well, everyone else. Hope you like it.

A/N: I'm not a medical expert. I have asthma so I know a few things about raspatory issues. But this might not be the most accurate. And it's unbeta read, as usual.

Ted Lasso Masterlist

Ao3

Pairing: RoyJamie

word count: 4k+

Content warning: Illness, pneumonia, fever, coughing, vomiting (from coughing), panic, angst, sleep depravation, fear, swearing/cursing/cussing.

Fever in the Night

Roy Kent growls at the knock that would have woken him up if he had been asleep. He’d been reading and didn’t appreciate being interrupted. 

“Better be fucking dying,” He grumbles as he opens the door. “What?” he snaps at Sam Obisanya. 

“Sorry, Coach,” Sam nervously says. “But it’s Jamie.” 

And that has Roy moving before his tired brain catches up. He almost forgets to grab his room key and phone, but he isn't a fucking idiot, so he grabs them. Sam relaxes a tiny bit that Roy didn't argue or even swear as much as Sam had expected for it being 1 a.m. Roy feels uneasy when he looks up to see Dani Rojas and Jeff Goodman in the hall, both in the open door of the room Sam and Jamie shared. The four players have adjoining rooms. 

“What about Jamie?” Roy finally asks as he follows Sam.

“He's very sick,” a worried Dani Rojas says. Jeff nods. 

“Okay,” Roy says. He was tempted to ask them why the fuck they woke him and not the team’s doctor, but it was about Jamie Tartt. He'd be pissed if they didn't. He cares about Jamie. And he shoves that thought aside because he really shouldn't think like that. And Roy forgets it completely when he gets one look at Jamie. Jamie’s pale. His stupid fucking hair is sweat drenched and sticking to his face. 

“You two, out,” he says to Dani and Jeff by the door. 

“But-” Dani starts, but Roy glares. Jeff was smart enough to be back in his own room already.

“You have a fucking match, with or without Tartt, so fucking sleep. He'll be fucking fine.” 

The coach weighs his options before handing Sam his own room key. “You fucking too.”

“But coach-”

“Not going to fucking repeat it,” he snaps. 

“What about you?”

“Don't fucking argue.”

“Sorry, coach,” Sam says, but he hasn't moved. The room key and his phone gripped right in his hands. 

“I’ll call the physio team, now fucking go.”

Sam nods and silently leaves. Roy sighs once the doors are closed. As tired as he is, his fucking heart is pounding. Something is wrong with Jamie Tartt. And that twists something inside the gaffer. And despite the protest in his knee, he is kneeling down beside Jamie to get a good look at him. He should call the physio team. He needs the team’s doctor. Roy might know more than your average bloke when it comes to health, thanks to his sister, but he's no bloody expert. But he needs a bit more information first. He reaches up and carefully moves the hair out of Jamie's face. 

“Fucking hell,” he says when just his fingertips can feel the heat of a fever. Just to be sure, he places his palm on Jamie's forehead. And he squashes down whatever feeling is stirred up by how the sick striker shivers at the contact but still leans into it. 

“Fucking burning up,” Roy mutters to himself. 

He winces at the pain in his knee as he stands up. He tucks Jamie's blankets tighter around him. The gaffer is scrolling through his contacts to find the one he needs. He flips the light on in the ensuite and talks to the team's doctor as he grabs a flannel and wets it. As he hangs up the phone, he sets the damp cloth on Jamie's forehead. That's when the player’s eyes snap open. Confusion, followed by panic, flashed across the striker’s face. Because in Jamie's mind, if Roy Kent is there, then Jamie is running late for something, and Roy is probably pissed at him. Jamie hates when Roy is pissed at him. Jamie doesn't like disappointing Roy. 

“Easy, Tartt,” Roy says. “Fucking stay put.” Roy puts the fallen flannel back in place. “Try and relax.”

And as anxious as Jamie is, a command from Roy Kent is one that Jamie will follow. 

“Roy?” Jamie manages to ask. And the coach hates how tired, weak, and utterly confused Jamie seems. 

Before Roy can say anything else, a knock at the door makes Jamie flinch. Without thinking, Roy smoothes the younger man’s hair back in an attempt to calm him as he gets up. Roy’s always been better at physical gestures than words. And if that's what was needed to keep Tartt from panicking or hurting himself, well, then that was a no fucking brainer. He was going to fucking do it.

He lets the doctor into the room and silently hovers as the doctor deals with the striker. 

“Any other player showing symptoms?” the doctor asks the gaffer.

“Fuck if I know, Obisanya, Rojas, and Goodman just seemed fucking worried. Are we going to have a fucking team tomorrow?” 

“Guess we will see in the morning,” the doctor says. Roy gets a rundown on what needs to be done for Jamie. The coach leans his head against the cool wood of the door when he closes it behind the doctor. 

“Where's Sam?” Jamie asks, finally realizing that his roommate’s gone. And that concerns Roy a bit. Jamie is one of his most observant players. On and off the pitch, he tends to keep track of who is around him and where his mates are. He likes knowing where the people he cares about are. He was just noticing Sam’s absence now, which wasn’t a good sign. 

“Sent him off to get some fucking sleep,” Roy says. Several things had been dropped off at the room by either the physio team or hotel staff. Roy had been focused on the doctor and Jamie when it had happened. The gaffer hands the player a bottle of water. Jamie takes it without argument.

“Where?” Jamie glanced at Sam's empty bed. Roy rolls his eyes. 

“My room,” Roy answers, and that seems to surprise Jamie. Before the player can comment on the decision, Roy adds, “Not like I'm fucking using it.” And Roy regrets saying it at the way Jamie gets a sad look on his face. “It's fucking fine, Tartt. My fucking choice.” 

“But-”

“But someone needs to make sure you fucking rest.”

And Jamie hates that because he doesn't want to be a burden to anyone. 

“You don't need to-”

“Already fucking decided,” Roy states. “Just try and fucking sleep.” 

Roy is woken up by violent coughing, and he is out of bed without thinking. Helping raise Phoebe had him trained to be a light sleeper at times like these. Roy follows the sound to the loo. He knocks on the closed door. He didn't know if Jamie had coughed so hard he made himself vomit or vice versa. But from what he could hear, it was painfully obvious one of the two had occurred. The gaffer is glad to find the door unlocked and lets himself in. Jamie tries to argue and kick him out, but he is tired and shaking and can barely move. And that has something in Roy breaking. 

“Not fucking going anywhere, Tartt,” Roy says. As he grabs some water and sits beside Jamie. Jamie accepts the glass if only to rinse his mouth out. Roy can hear the way Jamie's lungs struggle, and that has Roy struggling not to panic. But he manages. He gets Jamie calmed down, cleaned up, and back in bed. Roy ends up texting his sister, who calls him. She asks him if Jamie has been sick recently, but then he remembers what Jamie had told him during training. He'd nearly choked to death at Ola’s over a joke one of the other idiots had told him. And fuck, Jamie couldn't catch a break. His sister tells him it sounds like aspiration pneumonia to her. He should have the doctor double-check, but hopefully, Jamie being a fit footballer will mean he can fight it off without too much trouble. He would need to keep a close eye on him. Hopefully, he wouldn't need to be admitted to hospital. And that had Roy’s blood running cold. A cold and a fucking joke. He sent a message to the physio team and went back to Jamie. 

The only good thing was that pneumonia wasn't inherently contagious. The cold Jamie had before it might be, but it was unlikely to take Sam, Dani, or Jeff out of the game. Jamie wouldn't be leaving the hotel the next morning. Roy really dreaded the idea, but he was already hitting the number on his phone. Keeley would have a lot to say about this at some point. She’d probably see right through him and know he cares more than he should for just being Jamie’s coach. But he needed help, and he knew Jamie trusted Keeley as much as Roy did. 

“Better be good, Roy,” Keeley says. She was clearly annoyed and not a fan of being woken at nearly 4 in the morning. 

“Fucking opposite, it's very fucking bad,” he says, and he sounds it. And she knows if Roy is that upset, it means one of three people was in a bad state. It must be Roy's sister, his niece, or Jamie Tartt. Roy and Jamie might both be her exes, but she knew them well enough to know that they were both idiots in love, just neither of them would admit it. And since it's an away match, it probably meant Jamie was the one having issues. 

“What's wrong? What happened?” She says, all annoyance gone and completely awake. “Is Jamie all right?”

Roy tells her what has happened since Sam knocked on his door. She tells him to keep doing what he's doing. She’ll stay with Jamie during the match. 

“Just let me text Rebecca, and I’ll be there,” Keeley tells him. Roy Kent doesn't argue. 

Roy is an anxious fucking mess throughout the whole match. He does his job. The team does theirs, but everyone feels like there is a gaping hole in the lineup. Even if they physically have a full team, thanks to Roberts. But Isaac had told them to win it for Jamie, and the fucking lads did. That would at least make Jamie feel better about having missed it. Colin Hughes and Dani Rojas had Sky Sports doing replays of goals. And post-game interviews had been more about Tartt than one would think for a game he wasn't in. Roy was just glad he’d had Jamie give Georgie a heads-up that he was sick before he left for the match. The striker listened to his mum as an amused Keeley kicked Roy out of the room. 

The team didn't even ask Roy if he was going out to celebrate the win. The gaffer hadn't even hung back for the bus. He didn't even change his clothes. He let Nathan Shelley to handle the press. He caught a ride back to the hotel, annoyed by the chatty driver, but he was cognizant enough to not verbally eviscerate the guy. He was just doing his job. Tipped the guy well. Not his fault Roy was a shit company. 

“You weren't joking,” Keeley grinned when she opened the door for Roy. Her voice was quiet.

“Said I'd be back after the match,” he stated as he tossed his jacket over a chair in the room. His tone matches hers. “How is he?” 

“Out cold. Whatever the new doctor gave him must be working.” 

Roy hummed. The hotel’s concierge had arranged for a local doctor to treat Jamie so the physio team could focus on the match. And Roy didn't even mind the outrageous fee that was going to cost them. He'd throw all the money he had at it, even though he knew Rebecca Welton would cover it in a heartbeat. She cared deeply for her team these days. And Roy could respect that. He did respect that about his boss. He glanced at the muted TV as Sky Sports blathered on about the game. Roy was glad it was silent. He could ignore the bullshit commentary on his coaching. They won. That's all that fucking mattered. 

“You need to leave?” Roy asked at the way Keeley's phone kept going off. 

“Maybe to take a few calls. Seems the internet is not satisfied with the team's explanation of Jamie's absence.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Roy says as he moves to check on Jamie himself.

“You would say that,” Keeley grins. “But it's my job to answer it. I'm his publicist, after all.”

“Fair,” Roy states, but he doesn't look at her. His eyes are locked on Jamie. He doesn't see the knowing look on Keeley's face. 

“Team should be here soon,” she tells him as she grabs her bag. “Text me if you need me.”

Roy grunts and nods. He finally looks up at her.

“Doctor said he’ll be back up in a few days,” she assures him. “Bus ride might suck, but we'll manage.”

After she leaves, Roy turns off the TV. He was glad he and Sam had switched rooms. He silently changes into more comfortable clothes and pulls a chair up next to the bed. He picks up the book he had been reading. He didn't get very far in his book. He was too distracted by the wheezing sound coming from Jamie. He knew the team was back as the noise level in the hall increased. He was about to go out and tell them all to shut the fuck up when someone beat him to it. There was a quiet knock on the door. 

He opens it to find Nathan Shelley.

“How is he?” the assistant coach asks.

“Sleeping, but it's not fucking great,” he tells him.

“Think he’ll be able to travel?” Nate asks.

“Can't fucking leave him here,” Roy says. 

“That's true, but it won't make him worse, will it?” 

“Not much to fucking do about it.”

Roy had bought Keeley a ticket back so she could meet them when they got back. She complained, but he was ordering her around, but she didn't really mean it. They were both worried about Jamie. And if she could help ease his pain after a long trip, then she would. 

Roy had triple-checked that he had everything packed up for both himself and Jamie. Dani and Jeff had taken their stuff down so Roy could focus on getting Jamie up and moving. No one says anything, but they watch curiously as Roy leads a pale Jamie to the far back of the bus. The players exchanged worried looks. It was going to be a long, tense ride back to Richmond. 

The bus was quiet, as it usually is during these late-night trips, but this was an uneasy silence. The entire bus would go painfully tense every time Jamie coughed. 

They were on the road for half an hour when Roy noticed Jamie was shaking. Roy couldn't imagine how shitty the striker must feel. Fever-induced chill on a fucking crowded bus. 

Jamie's eyes snap to his when Roy feels the ill man’s forehead for what feels like the millionth time. 

“You okay?” Roy asks quietly.

“Cold,” Jamie says. And Roy had already figured that out by the way Jamie not only avoided the cold glass of the window but also the way Jamie sort of chased the warmth of Roy's hand as he pulled away. How Jamie could be burning up but shivering cold had Roy thinking this was a terrible idea. He should have made better arrangements for Jamie. He should have extended their stay at the hotel, no matter the price, and sent the team back without them. Sure, there would be a lot of questions he didn't even want to answer to himself, let alone out loud, but he regrets not doing it. For Jamie's health and safety. Jamie was already wrapped in his usual blanket, a new one Keeley had given him, and Jamie's jacket. But it didn't seem to be enough. 

Roy hummed. 

Jamie's tired eyes watched as Roy dug through the bag he had with him. First, he makes Jamie take more meds. Jamie is vaguely aware of the quiet buzzing alarm on Roy’s phone. As he takes the meds, he sees Roy pull out a jumper from his bag. Roy kept it with him on trips like these in case a hotel or bus had a busted heater, and he needed extra layers. Jamie considers arguing, but he is just too exhausted to actually do it when Roy helps him out of his jacket and into the jumper. Instead of Jamie’s jacket, Roy's much thicker leather jacket, still warm from Roy wearing it, is wrapped around the striker. Jamie almost cries because it's warm and it smells like Roy, and it's overwhelmingly comforting to his fever-muddled mind. Roy must notice the glassy look in Jamie's already bloodshot eyes because without hesitation or protest, even at the odd looks from a few people around them, Roy shifts them both. Roy moves so he can lean against the window with Jamie's back to his chest. One foot on the floor to brace them both. And Jamie manages to get a bit more air than he had bundled up in the window seat. Roy was fucking warm, and Jamie just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep in his lap, but his lungs hurt, and he could barely breathe as is. Thankfully, the bench at the back of the bus they were on was a bit longer than the normal seats, and Roy could stretch his knee out. They still had nearly 5 hours on the bus. Jamie’s eyelids felt heavy when Roy pulled the blankets back around him. The violent chills finally eased a bit. Jamie didn't know if it was from the meds or how blissfully warm Roy fucking Kent was, but he felt just a tiny bit more human.

“Quit fighting it and fucking sleep, Tartt,” Roy said. Jamie chuckles, but it turns into a wheezing cough that earns concerned luck from the teammates who are sitting nearby. The striker doesn't see the way Roy silently waves them off, too distracted by the way Roy’s arm holds him tight, a hand on his chest to keep him from falling to the floor. Roy's other hand starts rubbing Jamie's back until he can pull an exhausted Jamie back against his chest.

“Just try and breathe, Jamie,” Roy's voice is in his ear, sending a shiver down Jamie’s spine. “Let the medicine work. Nothing else matters. Just fucking breathe.”

Jamie whines slightly because all he wants to do is tuck his face in Roy's next and probably cry.

Roy Kent’s heart fucking shattered at the weak noise that Jamie makes, and he can't take it. He wraps his arms as tight around Jamie as he dares with how much the striker is already struggling to breathe. And he plants a kiss on Jamie's temple.

“It's okay, Jamie,” the older man assures. “I've got you.” And that seems to do the trick because Jamie’s hands wrap around Roy's wrist. So the coach adds, “I'm not going anywhere.” And Roy starts quietly telling Jamie about his first time in Newcastle as a kid when he’d been training in Sunderland. His hushed words continue until Jamie is fast asleep against him. 

About halfway through the trip, Coach Beard comes to check on them. He isn't surprised that Jamie is passed out. Nor is he shocked to find Roy Kent wide awake. The gaffer might be exhausted, and on night two, he has no sleep, but he is wide awake. Beard hands him a water bottle. One Roy accepts because he was sort of trapped where he is. 

“You good?” Beard asks. Roy nods because as painfully asleep his leg might be, and as achy his bad knee is, he'd endure it if it meant Jamie slept. Jamie had spent much of the first hour of the trip trying to get comfortable. The fact he had slept long enough for Roy to get sore was good. 

“Fucking fine,” Roy grumbles. 

“You sure?” Nate asks when he appears over Beard’s shoulder. “We could help you-” 

He is cut off by a low growl from Roy. “You fucking wake him, and you’ll be picking your teeth up out the aisle.” 

“Right, yeah, got it,” Nate says before disappearing, presumably back to his seat. Beard just nods and hands him the book Roy had set aside. 

Roy can feel the rattle in Jamie's lungs worsening as the meds wear off, and Jamie starts to wake up. Thankfully, they were only about 45 minutes out from the dog track now. 

Roy gently shushes him as a bump in the road jostles everyone on board, earning a pained whine from the ill man. “It's okay, Jamie,” Roy tells him. “Nearly there, then we can go home and get you in bed.” 

And it's like a knife in Roy's heart that Jamie is too tired and sick to make a snippy comeback or stupid innuendo. Like all the humor and joy was being drained from the player. And Roy hated it. As much as he acted annoyed or put out by Jamie, he fucking adored him. Wouldn't change the man Jamie had grown into for the fucking world.

On the contrary, he'd fucking fight anyone that doubted Jamie. Because Roy Kent was fucking gone on Jamie Tartt. The arrogant prick stole his heart at some point, and Roy hadn't even fucking noticed. His sister and Keeley were never going to let him live this down. And he'd endure it as long as Jamie was okay.

Jamie worried as he watched how Roy had to grip the seats as they exited the bus. Roy is slower than usual. Jamie might be sick, but he knew Roy. He could identify Roy while blindfolded by footsteps alone. The slight limp and the way Roy leans heavily on the railing with each step down makes Jamie’s brows furrow.

“Fucking stop it,” Roy says when his eyes meet Jamie's. 

“Your knee-” 

“Is fucking fantastic. You going to just fucking stand there or what?” 

Keeley's laugh has Jamie looking behind him.

“You two are a sight,” she grins. 

“Did you-”

“Course I did, Roy-o,” she smiles. “Let's get you home, babe,” she says to Jamie, and he is too tired and confused to argue. He nearly panics when he notices Will helping Roy along, but Keeley's warm hand pats Jamie’s chest. “He's okay, just a long ride,” Keeley tells him. “Telling either of you not to worry is a waste, but I can tell you, he doesn't regret it. Now, in you go.” She helps him into Roy’s G-Wagon with little argument. He is surprised when Roy gets in the back beside him, and Keeley gets behind the wheel. Roy doesn't often let others drive his car. But then again, this is Keeley.

“Jamie?” The striker's eyes snap up and he meets Keeley’s in the rearview mirror before Keeley looks away to meet Roy’s. 

“Hmm?”

“She asked if you were fucking hungry,” Roy tells him, and the worried look on Roy's face has a familiar feeling in Jamie's gut returning. 

“I'm knackered more than anything,” Jamie says.

“I get that,” Keeley says. “Be home soon.”

Jamie must fall asleep because the next thing he knows, he's waking up in his own bed, unsure how he got there. He tries to put the pieces together, but he comes up short. 

“Good, you're awake.”

“Phoebe?” Jamie asks because Roy Kent’s niece is in the doorway to his bedroom.

“Hang on, I have to tell my mum.”

“Your mum?” Jamie mutters, but she is gone. So Phoebe and her mum were there. Jamie’s tired brain tries to remember what happened to cause this to happen. 

“Well, your colour's better,” Roy's sister says as she walks in. 

“You're in my house?” 

She nearly laughs at his confused look. Phoebe giggles.

“Well, yeah,” Phoebe says like it's the most obvious fact in the universe. “Uncle Roy let us in.”

“Uncle Roy,” Jamie mutters.

“My brother begrudgingly went to training,” the doctor tells him. She uses a stethoscope to check his breathing. Jamie coughs as she does. “Rough,” she tells him. “But better than it was.”

“Uncle Roy said it was something like popcorn popping while rattling a jar of change, and when you pinch a balloon as it deflated.”

Jamie’s laughs turn into a wheezing coughing fit at the odd description. He startles slightly as a funny mask meets his face, but he looks over at the doctor as she turns on a machine. 

“Yeah, she asked him, and that's how he explained it,” the amused mother said as she looked at her daughter. “Nebulizer,” she taps the machine. “Help get those lungs to open up faster. Make it easier to breathe.” She goes on to tell him how it works. 

“So,” Jamie says despite the mask muffling his speech. “You…have…Babysitting…duty?” 

He doesn't miss the worried look on Phoebe's face as he has to break between each word, but her mum just squeezes her knee, where she sits on the side of Jamie's bed. Phoebe's hands were too busy holding Jamie's hand. And that makes Jamie smile behind the mask. He was always happy to see Phoebe. Sure, this was a weird visit, but he was glad she was there. Being sick was awful. But it was easier when you had people that cared around you. 

“My brother insisted Phoe was the best nurse for the job.” And the smile the girl gave them did wonders to heal Jamie's heart. She was a ball of sunshine. Jamie was still trying to figure out how they got there when he remembered that Keeley had driven Jamie and Roy to Jamie's flat. Roy must have stayed. 

“His knee?” Jamie asks, sure that Roy's sister would know.

“Fine, after he iced it,” she tells him. “Or as fine as it ever is.” She shrugs. “Although if he doesn't start wearing the brace again on bad days, I'm going to kick him in it.”

“That's not very nice, mum,” Phoebe says.

“Neither is your uncle when his knee hurts, so seems fair,” her mum grins. Jamie chuckles. “Medication must be working. We got a laugh that didn't turn into a cough.”

“Yay!” Phoebe cheered, and Jamie smiled. The pair stayed, and Phoebe told him all about the match he had missed. As much as it hurt him to know he had let his team down, the colourful commentary from an 8-year-old made it easier to stomach. 

Roy had let himself in with Jamie’s keys and followed his niece’s laugh to find them all in Jamie's room. His sister turned off the nebulizer. And the icy grip around the gaffer's heart eases slightly at the smile on Jamie's face as the mask was set aside. 

“Uncle Roy's here!” Phoebe announced. 

“How's the best medical team doing?” Roy asks. 

“Great!” Phoebe grins. 

“And the patient?” Roy adds. And Jamie is stunned at the strange dichotomy on the gaffer's face. He looks exhausted. He has bags under his eyes. At the same time, there is a spark in his eyes. A smile on his face as he leans against the door frame. And Jamie feels butterflies when Roy looks at him. It's not the first time he's felt it. He's always craved Roy's attention. Even when they were both playing for Richmond, Jamie would go out of his way to antagonize his captain. Getting to see Roy content with his family was something Jamie always considered special.

“Much better,” Phoebe answers. “He managed to laugh without coughing.” 

“Oh really?” Roy asks with amusement. 

“He had the nebulizer on at the time, but it means we're on the right track,” Roy's sister tells him. “That and his fever finally broke.”

Jamie hadn't even realized that he didn't feel feverish anymore. 

“That's great,” Roy says. The gaffer feels himself relaxed. Jamie was getting better. 

Roy watches as his sister gets up from the chair beside Jamie's bed. She reaches a hand out to Phoebe. “Come on, Phoe, soup-making time,” she says. Phoebe gives both Jamie and Roy a hug as she leaves. Roy can't help but grin at the dopey smile on Jamie's face. 

“Wait, soup making? Do I even have the stuff for that?” Jamie asks, and Roy gets a bit uneasy again. 

“You do now,” Roy says as he moves to take the seat his sister had been in. 

“Since when?” 

And Roy gives him an odd look. 

“Since yesterday.”

“Did Keeley get them before we got back?”

“No,” Roy answers. “Jamie, you've been in and out of it for a couple of days since we got back.”

“What?” And he remembers that Roy's sister had said Roy was at training. They usually had the day off after long travel away matches like that. 

“A couple days?”

“You okay?” Roy asks as Jamie coughs. 

Jamie winces. He felt terrible thinking about how many nights of sleep he had ruined for Roy. 

“You should go home,” Jamie says when he can finally speak again. 

“Already here,” Roy states.

“I know, but…” Jamie starts. “You need sleep.”

“And you need to recover, so here we fucking are,” Roy tells him. 

“I know, but-”

“I can fucking assure you that I will not sleep better in my own fucking bed. Probably worse because no one is here to look after your dumb arse.”

“But my fever broke, and I'm feeling-”

“You just had a coughing fit,” Roy says with a glare.

“But I didn't throw up or pass out, so I’m-”

“Fucking hell,” Roy says, rubbing at his tired eyes. “Fuck it.” A stunned Jamie watches as Roy climbs into bed beside him. “Now will you shut the fuck up and sleep.”

Jamie woke up feeling warmer than he had in a long time. He felt better too. His lungs still felt like crappy, but he didn't care as much. 

#tw: illness #tw: pneumonia #tw: fever #tw: coughing #tw: vomiting #tw: panic #tw: fear #tw: sleep depravation #tw: swearing #tw: cussing #tw: cursing #royjamie #jamie x roy #roy x jamie #roy kent #jamie tartt #prompt fill #ted lasso fic #keeley jones

[jaskiercommabard]

Hey! It's moonykins from AO3! You asked for a prompt so here's one: Jaskier getting hurt on a hunt he was perhaps not supposed to be on and Geralt feeling guilty because Jaskier could have died. Geralt can take care of Jaskier and bandage him up and Jaskier probably survived because of his own dumb luck. Feelings can come out? I really suck with ideas but I wanted to give you something <3

Thank you ANGEL for this prompt, this was interesting and fun to write. Thank you also for your very thoughtful and encouraging words.

This one got away from me again, probably to no one's surprise. I hope it's alright!

Read on AO3 (4k)

************************

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No! You’re telling me they aren’t related to mermaids at all?”

Geralt nods sagely and knocks back the last of his ale, then hails the barkeep to refill their cups as Jaskier hides a smile. It’s a balmy spring night, late enough in the season that the hearth in the Drunken Gull remains unlit - a treat, this far north, one that has both their shirts unbuttoned - and he’s caught Geralt in the rare, talkative mood that only strikes him when he’s been paid up front for an easy contract.

“But the songs-”

“Lies.”

“The stories!” Jaskier flaps a hand above his head, gesturing vaguely to stars that - he presumes, despite being in the midst of a revelation - still hang in the sky above the roof of the tavern. “The constellation! The Seven Sirens, Geralt!”

“In Zerrikania, they call those stars the Seven Goats,” he deadpans, amusement sparking in his rolling eyes. "Goats aren't relatives of mermaids either. Write that down."

Geralt taps the songbook laid open on the table, flicks Jaskier's nose when he tries to shut the witcher’s finger in it.

“You're a menace, you know. Terrible. I thought they were just…just..” Jaskier’s hand flutters in the air again. “Ornery, flying mermaids!”

“Mm. Common misconception. Sirens aren’t sentient - not like merpeople or humans, anyway. More like…sharks. Or wasps.”

“But they look like-” 

Geralt slaps his broad palm down on the bartop. “But they look like women!”

Jaskier can’t help his startled laugh, and Geralt huffs easily back at him. His mouth is twisted up at the corner, amber eyes expectant, and it’s…something. It’s something. 

“Go on then, witcher, tell me. Why do they look like women?”

Jaskier leans in close like he's asking for a secret. Geralt leans in close like he's telling one.

“It’s not a mutation. It’s an adaptation,” he says. His breath smells like honey and hops and the flagon of vodka Jaskier’s goaded him into drinking. 

"Brilliant," the bard says. 

"Effective," the witcher concedes. "Up close, once you get them riled, they change. It’s…” 

His voice drops off, eyes shuttering slightly. 

“Ugly?” Jaskier provides.

“Ugly,” he confirms, but he’s still frowning. His fingers tap the bar restlessly, disturbing the beads of condensation gathered below their mugs, and Jaskier's eyes get caught on the motion. 

On nights like this - nights when they’ve been laughing - something ancient always comes to settle itself heavily over Geralt. He knows better than to try and lift it.

Jaskier clears his throat, pulling them both from their separate thoughts. When he grins at Geralt, his companion hums agreeably enough in return, and it's as close to a goodnight as they'll get. 

Jaskier claps him on the shoulder anyway, squeezing to pull himself up. He's just on the right edge of drunk, perilously close to giving himself a wicked hangover if he doesn't quit - that won't do, now that he has plans for the morning. 

“Thank you for indulging me, my friend.” 

Geralt shrugs easily, lifting his palms as Jaskier gathers up his untouched quill and empty songbook. 

"On my own head be it." 

So really, all things considered, it's not even Jaskier's fault that he ends up trailing Geralt to the shore the following morning, not with an invitation like that. 

**

After no small amount of charm laid on the baker’s daughter and the stablehand's father, Jaskier finds himself with a honey-soaked bun in one hand and a crudely drawn trail map in the other. Trail might be overselling it, really - it’s little more than a footpath of tamped-down grass, with dense sagebrush and gently drooping ferns encroaching so heavily from both sides that it disappears altogether in some places. A layer of oppressive fog, so thick it hides most of the formidable Koviri mountain range in its haze, doesn’t ease the way either, but Jaskier is a coastal boy. He follows the call of seabirds and takes his time licking the honey from his fingers as he picks his way toward the ocean. 

Eventually, the dense forest starts to give way to the coast and the hard-packed dirt beneath Jaskier’s boots becomes slippery with silt. Younger trees take the place of the massive ones, bending out from the soil at impossible angles where the ocean has washed it away to expose their roots. When the trail finally disappears completely, he finds himself on a high, rocky outcropping above the sea. It occurs to him that the view must be astonishing on a clear day, but as it is, the fog sits so thick above the turbulent sea that he could almost pluck it from the sky like spun sugar. 

Spotting Geralt is easier than he thought it might be, even in this weather. He's built - and outfitted - to blend into the night, black armor standing out against the morning sky and greyish bark of the cypress tree he's climbed into, but that won't stop him getting a job done.

Not for the first time, Jaskier is fascinated by the stillness Geralt possesses - even as he settles into his hiding spot behind one of the larger boulders dotting the cliffside, he’s tapping out a rhythm with his fingers, chewing on the inside of his cheek, shaking hair out of his eyes. The witcher doesn’t move any more than a boulder would, doesn’t bend to the wind any more than a tree would. He simply waits, crossbow upraised, until the first siren emerges from the fog.

From where Jaskier crouches, the adaptation is indeed an effective one - to his human eyes, it looks like Geralt has shot an angel from the sky. He’s struck by the grace of it falling, leathery wings cradling her, blowing like great sails as she tumbles down into the horizon. It could almost be a song, but when she splatters on the rocky outcrop below, Jaskier loses the melody. 

Several things happen at once, after that. A shriek rises from the fog, just one at first before more join in an eerie, skull-splitting chorus. Jaskier’s ears are roaring with it as Geralt starts picking them out of the sky with impossible precision. He’s thinning them out, but not enough, it can’t possibly be enough. Geralt drops from his perch and lands easily on his feet - Jaskier can almost hear the curse he lets out from where he watches the remaining sirens swarm around the clifftop, banking hard to swoop and dive at the witcher. The crossbow is thrown down in favor of a silver sword - Jaskier sucks a breath in as it slices through the air in a wide, red arc, and then he’s gone.

Geralt has disappeared in the fluttering swarm, invisible until a blast of magic explodes from the center, knocking some of them back into the air and sending a few of the others to their deaths in the churning water below. Jaskier waits. He does wait for Geralt, but the hand that had cast the sign simply crumples to the ground beside the odd angles of his fallen body. 

So, objectively, it is not his fault, with Geralt unconscious in a slowly growing pool of blood at his feet, that he finds himself in the thick of a hunt he promised not to join, defending them both. 

**

“Hand-and-a-half, my arse, Geralt.” His shoulders are screaming as he lifts the witcher’s silver sword, which certainly should be called three-or-four-hands-at-least, but he plants his feet on either side of his friend’s body and raises it anyway. He can’t swing it, really, the thing is far too heavy for him to wield with any precision, but it keeps the few remaining sirens at bay long enough for him to dig the heel of his boot into Geralt’s side. It earns him a promising groan and he takes a steadying breath. He can do this, he can keep them back until the professional is on his feet again. Ornery mermaids, he tells himself, they're just ornery mermaids.

The weight of the blade wrenches his wrists as he jabs it toward the two closest creatures, making them hiss and scream. It’s horrific, bone-jarring, hitting his head like twin daggers. The shrieks send him to his knees until he’s crouched over Geralt, the blood dripping from his own ears and nose mingling with the already gory trenches in the witcher's armor. Gritting his teeth, Jaskier lurches forward and buries the blade in the belly of the monster that had carved bloody grooves into Geralt’s chest while Jaskier had watched, horrified, too far away and too weak to stop it.

Geralt was right - they are ugly up close, ugly enough to staunch some of the guilt rolling in Jaskier’s gut, anyway. Gone are the fair faces they use to lure fishermen to their nests - those plush lips stretched thin around dripping, needle-like teeth, flowing hair gone wild and tangled like sea moss. Their talons rip into the earth, close enough that the sharp tips are stained by the widening pool of blood that surrounds them. 

When the creature at the end of Geralt’s sword crumples, its sisters fall back, rising into the air with great flaps of their wings that send sand flying into Jaskier’s eyes. 

“That’s right,” he shouts triumphantly, jabbing his weapon into the air. “And stay out, you ugly-” 

Ah, fuck.

She rises from the fog like a shipwreck, raising herself above the cliffedge with concussive beats of her ancient wings, so impossibly large that the tattered ends of them blur into the edges of Jaskier’s vision. They’re ragged and torn in places, littered with scars so deep Jaskier can see the sunlight shining through them, yet still they keep her aloft. She’s two, maybe three times the size of the other sirens, easily. Ekhidna. 

“Geralt, get up,” he shouts as the creature’s reflective, fish-like eyes settle on them. It's worse than any storm Jaskier's ever been in, the wind and water from her wingbeats tearing at them like a hurricane. 

"I need you," he shouts frantically, shaking one of Geralt's armored shoulders. Fear grips him for the first time since he rushed out to help the witcher, perhaps for the first time in his very short life - that's what it feels like, anyway, as the ekhidna's tail begins to coil in the sky above them. "Come on. I can't- I can't do this, I need you."

She's flipping in the air like an acrobat, diving at them with deadly grace, and Geralt’s eyes are still closed. Jaskier twists, curls himself over the other man’s body to shelter him as best he can, his own useless fear choking him as the ekhidna's shriek grows louder, closer, until- 

Until it doesn't. Until the air goes still and silent around them with a pressurized pop. Jaskier's eyes open - when had they closed? - to find Geralt already struggling to his feet, hand outstretched to hold the golden shield around them. 

It bursts like a soap bubble when the beast hits it, scattering in a shower of orange-gold sparks, but it's enough to knock her back. Enough for Geralt to get his feet under him and yank his sword from Jaskier's trembling grasp. 

The witcher is unrelenting, brutal, graceful as he beats her back, wielding his weapon with no more strain than it takes Jaskier to wield a quill. She swipes at him with her great claws, bares her gory teeth, and still he lunges. He has her balanced on the edge of the outcropping, ready to take flight, when he buries his sword in her chest. He pulls it back with a grunt of effort, green-black liquid spouting from the wound, and launches a boot into her gut to topple her over the precipice.

He wastes no time rounding on Jaskier, stomping back until he's looming over the bard still kneeling in the bloody dirt. 

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he demands. Oh, he's furious. 

"I was thinking you were bleeding out and covered in monsters, and that you needed my help!" 

Geralt scoffs, teeth bared, and it hits Jaskier like a bolt.

"It would have been helpful for you to stay at the inn, like I told you to."

"If I had stayed at the inn, you would be fish food right now, not henpecking me for saving your life."

"Idiot," the witcher hisses.

"Prick," the bard bites back. They both deflate after a tense moment, the frenzy burned out of them, and Jaskier hauls himself up with Geralt's offered hand. 

“Ah, very good," he says, taking a few steps back to dust off his trousers. He's shaking like a leaf in a storm and his clothing is covered in witcher blood and siren guts and gods only know what else, likely a total loss.

He must look a sight, which explains why Geralt is looking at him like he's grown a second head.

"Well done, witcher. Well done, bard-”

“Jaskier, get back from the edge.”

“I don’t know about you, but I am swearing off fish forever, in fact-”

“Jaskier.”

“-maybe women, too, for good measure. At least scary ones with needle teeth and-”

“Jaskier, get back-”

He has the length of a single heartbeat to meet Geralt’s eyes, to watch him lunge forward with his hand outstretched, before the sky tips and Jaskier is falling through it. He barely has time to register the hot slice of talons ripping through his leg or the brain-rattling pain of the ekhidna’s final shriek before they plunge into blackness together.

Jaskier knows the sea, but not this one - it’s dark, made darker still by the clouds hanging in the sky he’d fallen out of, and so impossibly cold that it sucks the air from his lungs. Those massive wings must have broken their fall enough to keep him conscious, but now he’s caught in them like a net, already half-full of seawater and sinking far too quickly. They’re not leathery, like he thought, but fishbelly-slick, making it impossible to find purchase in the ever-darkening water. 

When he kicks himself free, he’s buffeted and turned by the current, unsure of which way he should be swimming to get back to the surface.

He can’t even see past the tiny bubbles already starting to escape his nose, but he knows he’s losing too much air as his lungs begin to burn. It’s all turning white at the edges by the time his chest starts to tighten, and still he pushes through the water.

** 

Julian Pankratz came into the world with a song to sing. That's what his mother tells him, anyway, when she reminds him that she labored for a full two days just for him to greet her screaming. The servants and townsfolk had gathered behind the manor to throw flowers into the sea while she brought him into the world - buttercup and blowball, daffodil and coneflower, sprays of roses the color of noontime sun - an offering to the Goddess, a plea for her mercy.

Did he look like a flower, tumbling through the air?  Was it a song?

Julian is six years old. It’s his birthday, and his father is showing him how to cast a net into the mudflats behind the manor to catch alewife and perch. The sight of the netting makes him sick, all bloated with wriggling silver skin and dotted with eyes that bulge out into nothing. He spends the rest of the afternoon alone, hunting seashells, lining them up on the shore until the sun spreads like fire on the horizon. He dips his ears below the water when his mother calls him in, letting it swallow his name. Julian, Julian - 

“Jaskier!”

Someone is shaking him, slapping his face. A great weight meets his chest, socking him like a sledgehammer - it might steal the breath from him, if he had any. 

He’s twelve, all knocking knees and long-limbed shyness, showing the porter’s son how to coax little crabs out from the tidepools. Their clay-stained knuckles brush in the silty water and his face grows hot, hotter still when Janus hooks their little fingers together. Julian runs, then - runs until his lungs feel as though they’ll burst. He doesn’t play with the servants’ children again after that.

He’s retching, the salt-bitter water burning his throat as it comes up. There’s no room for air, no time to breathe before more spouts forth from his mouth and nose. He’s twisted onto his side, fingers clawing through the sand like bloody talons.

Eighteen, and he holds Julian beneath the waves until Jaskier emerges. The world is stretched out before him and he’s hungry for it, starving, holding it in his teeth like a first breath. Posada is as far inland as he's ever been, far enough that his clothes have just stopped smelling of brine. He crests and falls like a wave that afternoon, crashing against his own heart, dissolving into foam and rising again. Three words or less. 

The first breath hits him like fire, colliding sharply with the water still left in his lungs, but it comes. He takes another, chokes up more foam, and then he must be back in the water because he’s rocking, rocking. There’s a shh-shh in his ear, like the inside of a seashell, a secret thing. It’s warm against his temple, his forehead, his eyelids. 

Twenty. Drowning in Rinde. Heat, salt, copper, bubbling up in his throat, stealing all the spaces air should be. Geralt is holding him, until he isn’t - until he’s holding her. Hope washes out like a tide. 

**

Consciousness returns to Jaskier in fits and starts - the crackle of a fire and the distant, scratchy hum of early cicadas comes first, then the cool breeze ruffling the dry hair across his forehead. Everything else is warm, soft enough at the edges to let him float just below the surface of awareness for a while, just beyond the grasp of pain. 

When he does manage to drag his eyes open, they settle on a familiar shape - Geralt, outlined by the glow of a fire, folded into a meditative stance beside the bed. His chest is bare, starkly pale against the gashes that are already healing - not quite closed, but already turning a healthy pink at the edges. 

His hands are closed around one of Jaskier’s, rough and warm. Something about that is peculiar, but it slips from his mind, silverfish-quick.

He turns instinctively into that warmth but doesn’t have a chance to examine it further before his body ignites in pain. It feels as though he’s been wrenched apart and put back at odd angles, his insides not quite where he left them. He gasps, a mistake that sets him heaving, hacking around shards of ice as the shadow beside him startles and shifts.

“Easy, Jaskier. Small breaths,” Geralt’s voice is rough in his ear as he tilts Jaskier to one side, just in time for him to retch into a waiting basin. The ringing is back in his ears, his mouth full of brine and blood, when he’s hauled back up. The room spins.

“What,” he tries to ask, but it comes out as a wordless croak. 

Geralt's hand sparks weakly in the corner of his vision, and then the rough edge of a mug brushes his cracked lower lip. Hot tea, something vaguely medicinal but sticky-sweet with honey, soothes his dry mouth but scratches his throat. It’s taken away too soon when his chest spasms again, forcing what little air he has out in burning gasps until his vision starts to blur. 

He's gulping, hiccuping, his body crying out for air, but there seems to be no room for it. 

He registers, distantly, the bed dipping under Geralt’s weight as his fingers are gently unwound from where Jaskier is clawing into his arms, and then their hands are tangled together. 

One hand pressed flat to Geralt’s chest, the other against his own, their discordant heartbeats keep time beneath his palms as Geralt takes slow, shallow breaths. Jaskier matches them in time, regaining some control.

“What happened?” he rasps.

“What do you remember?” Geralt asks in return. His eyes are shadowed, searching Jaskier’s face in the dim light as he wades through his muddled memory. Images bubble to the surface, disjointed, curling in his stomach like he’s falling again.

“The water, and- oh, ow, fuck- my leg.”

Geralt winces, nods as Jaskier reaches down to clutch at his thigh above the neatly bandaged wound that had, until now, escaped his awareness. The movement tugs at the other set of bandages, snug around his ribs. When he looks at Geralt for an answer, his golden eyes flick away, pupils narrowing as he stares into the fire. It looks like a door closing.

“You weren’t breathing.” 

Of course. Jaskier had seen it once at Oxenfurt - a ghastly demonstration on a corpse, no match for the brutal reality of it that had come years later when they spent a season in Skellige. Jaskier had been held back with some difficulty, thinking one of the villagers was beating a man who had washed up along the shore to death. The sick snap of a rib cracks in his memory.

"Broken, then." It's not a question - not a hopeful one, anyway, but Geralt shakes his head.

"No, but badly bruised." His voice cracks like it chokes him, like it's weighing him down, and Jaskier can’t bear it.

"Ah, good news. We'll be back on the Path in no time, then-"

"You will stay here and rest," Geralt interrupts. 

"Geralt, enough." Jaskier swats the witcher's hands away where they fuss at the edge of his bandages and attempts to push himself upright with trembling arms. "I am not some fragile-" 

"You are fragile, Jaskier," he growls, snatching the bard's wrist in his hand to still him, grip just tight enough to make him wince. Geralt drops it like a hot brand. "You're human."

Jaskier's heart falls into his stomach. It's churning, tempestuous, stealing the breath from him. Just human, always just human. He feels small, insignificant as he drops his hands into his lap.

"Geralt, I don't-" Jaskier swallows thickly, struggling to keep hold of his shallow breath. "I don't feel well, could you-"

"What is it?"

“Could you just…yell at me in the morning?”

“I won’t yell at you in the morning.” Something peculiar dances at the edge of Geralt's voice, and Jaskier knows better than to think this is the end of it.

“What, then?”

“In the morning, we will find the healer, and then I am going to make sure this never happens again.”

A cold spike of fear, of grief, jumps into Jaskier’s throat, a fresh wave of saltwater already stinging behind his eyes as he nods his understanding.

“You’re going to leave me.” 

Geralt shifts, his expression tightening in a way Jaskier is sure will hurt to remember later.

“I should.” And then, impossibly, “But I… I would not like to be without you, Jaskier.”

Jaskier stares at him, unreadable as always, before he decides to throw himself from another edge.

“I would not like to be without you, either,” he whispers, carefully metering out his precious air with each word as his foolish heart slams in his chest. Surely, Geralt can hear it. “Do you understand?” 

Geralt laughs, the wretch. It’s a wet, breathless thing that he throws into the ceiling, like he’s praying to one of those gods he doesn’t believe in. The palm of one broad, warm hand slides up Jaskier’s arm, along his shoulder, against his neck, soothing the chill from his skin. Geralt tips into him slowly, slowly, until their foreheads press together.

“I do,” Geralt breathes, so close that Jaskier feels the words on his own lips. “Now, I do.” 

Two fingers hook beneath his chin, tilting his face up. Geralt’s eyes have gone round and soft and fond, the agelessness slipping from them for a moment. He gathers Jaskier’s hand against his chest again and he can feel the witcher’s tempered heartbeat flipping beneath his fingertips. 

Surely, Jaskier must be at the bottom of the ocean. Surely, the sweet brush of lips at the corner of his own is merely a pleasant hallucination. It's probably a crab eating his face. 

"Wait, no," he squeaks. That wonderful pressure disappears immediately. "I mean, yes, I mean, Geralt!" 

The witcher in question only watches him, merciless amusement arching his brow. 

"I've just thrown up half of the North Sea," he says seriously. Geralt grins, unseriously, as Jaskier tugs on his wrist to get him closer anyway. 

"Don't care," he mutters against Jaskier's cheek.

“You smell like a grave hag.”

"I've smelled worse, and you wanted to kiss me then, too." 

"You're disgusting," Jaskier protests, tipping his face into Geralt's anyway. "And a bastard. I hate you." 

"You don't," he accuses. 

"I don't," Jaskier agrees, and grants Geralt his kiss, dry and chaste and sweet against his salt-chapped smile. Their noses are in the way, the angle is wrong. It’s nothing like he had imagined - and gods, he had imagined this - and nothing, nothing, has ever been more perfect. 

**

The fog has lifted, dawn curling her golden fingers toward them through the mountain peaks in the distance by the time Jaskier wakes again. He's startled from a dream, something about flowers falling from the sky, but it floats away from him like mist when he finds Geralt’s hand settled carefully around his hip. He smells like saltwater and cypress, leather and horse - like an old home, and a new one.

“Geralt?” he asks, softly, just in case his witcher has found sleep. A gravelly hmm slips into his ear anyway. “You'll stay?”

"I won't leave you," he answers. "Go back to sleep."

“Good," Jaskier mumbles, somewhere just on the softer edge of wakefulness. "I won’t leave you either."

In this light, with the morning sun washing them in gold, with Geralt's heart beating free and steady under his open palm, it could almost be true.

#Brought to you by the writer having pneumonia #I hope you like this!! I shook your prompt and 4200 words fell out #Thank you so so much #I'm unhappy with this one but I can't poke it any more than I already have #Geralt x jaskier #geralt x jaskier fanfiction #the witcher fanfiction #geraskier #geraskier fic #I'm so bad at tagging #the witcher #geralt of Rivia #jaskier

[sabyfangirl16]

After heading over to the garage to grab his Creature Pod, Chris ends up falling out of the Tortuga and landing in a forest where the sky seems like it’s permanently covered with clouds. Now he has to survive on his own with minimal equipment and materials while his brother and friends search for him wherever they can.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51577057/chapters/130363633

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/356010652-wild-kratts-desolate

#wild kratts #kratt brothers #chris kratt #martin kratt #aviva corcovado #koki #jimmy z #wild kratts fanfiction #wk fic #hurt/comfort #angst #bro fluff #sickfic #pneumonia #Chris gets whumped because of course he does #fandom #fangirl power!

[ohhgingersnaps]

writer priorities: sitting in the urgentcare lobby with pneumonia, scribbling down a bunch of notes on what it's like to get chest x-rays done because you can absolutely use it for a fic

#x-ray tech (with Concern): your doctor should see this immediately. me: look at me and this opportunityyy 🎶 #(don't worry this was a week ago and i'm definitely over the pneumonia now!! i just still think it's funny) #ok real talk tho the hanahaki fic? it can actually be done in three chapters. it's gonna be a short one for once i swear #i must not make it longfic. longfic is the time-killer. longfic is the little-death that brings total obliteration etc etc

[faofinn]

6. Sick and Injured

His body was on fire, sirens and shouts and flashes of bright light overwhelming him. Everything merging into just too much. He couldn't do it, couldn't hold on, so he let go, the sudden snap of relief just welcome blackness. There was no fight against whatever was holding him down, forcing each breath down his throat. He was dying, he was sure of it, and he was just so exhausted. It wasn't giving up. or giving in, it would just be a rest, just a break. 

"Everyone ready? Yeah, Okay. This is Finn, he's 22 and has quite the extensive medical history. He was found by a member of the public on the side of the road, confused and combative. When we arrived, he was in and out but very agitated. Apparently witnessed falling over a few times, initially query intox, but has a medic-alert bracelet on his backpack - He's known epileptic from a TBI, with EDS, POTS, chronic pain, fatigue and a few other mental health conditions. 

"When he's fallen, he seems to have hit his head multiple times, he's got two reasonable sized lacs to the left side of his head, and one across his eyebrow. No boggy masses, but cheekbone feels deformed. Obvious dislocation, possible break to left shoulder / collar bone, looks pretty unstable at the minute.

"He is cannulated and tolerating an OP at the moment. He had a possible 30 second seizure as we moved to the ambulance, and he's gone a lot more vacant in the last three minutes or so.

"He's got a temp of 38.6, tachy at 126, hypotensive 98/76. bm of 6.2. Sats have been 92 on air, came up to 96 on 15L. Reduced air entry globally, nothing being shifted on the right base, sounds very congested and crackly there. We've got NOK details from his alert card, so can give them a call while you guys get him sorted, if there's nothing else you need from us?"

When Sheila had called Fao in the middle of the night to say his brother had disappeared, he had to admit it hadn’t quite been what he’d expected. He’d known Finn was struggling with a chest infection of some description, and they’d been worried about seizures, and so he expected the call to be from his mum saying they’d had to go to A&E. 

He’d been sitting up with a cup of tea, just in case Finn turned up at his place, when his phone rang again, showing as No Caller ID. He snatched it up, immediately hitting answer. 

“Hello?”

"Hi, is that, uh, Faolan?"

He winced. “Yeah, that’s me.”

"In just ringing about your brother, a Finn Daniels?"

He sighed. “What’s happened?”

"He's been brought into the ED, he's…he's quite unwell at the moment. It might be best if you were able to come in?"

“Has he had a seizure?” Fao asked, glad he was already dressed. “I’m on my way in.”

"I think it's best if we explain in person."

Oh, fuck. That didn’t bode well, and Fao felt a cold fear run through him. “George’s? I’ll be there in ten.”

"Yeah. Did you want to let the family know? Or would you rather I called them?"

“I’ll call them.”

"Thank you."

“Thanks for calling me.” Fao murmured. 

"I'm sorry it's not good news. Be safe getting in."

“Mm, thanks.” Fao said softly, before he put the phone down. He drained his mug, shoved his shoes on and grabbed his stuff before he woke Ollie to tell him he was going and he didn’t know when he’d be back. The drive to hospital was quick, Fao definitely not speeding. He called Sheila on the way, explaining what little knew, and soon he’d found somewhere to park and rushed into the hospital. 

Finn had continued to swing between agitated and not, the staff only growing more concerned. He'd been sedated slightly, mainly just to get him through CT, but they'd still yet to get a coherent response from him. Even the mention of Fao coming to see him didn’t seem to break through, Finn staring blankly through them. 

When Fao finally got to the reception desk, he felt like he was going to lose his mind. He hated not knowing anything, whoever he’d spoken to on the phone so vague and unhelpful. Yes, he appreciated things were best discussed in person, but an idea was helpful. He didn’t even know if this was a seizure, though with what Sheila had told him it was somewhat likely. 

They took him through, but he wasn’t allowed straight into resus, instead shown the relatives room to wait. He paced up and down like a caged tiger, his hair a mess from how many times he’d run his fingers through it, though it fell in his face all the same. 

There was a sharp knock on the door, all too clinical and harsh for the situation. "Hi, is it Fao?"

Fao stopped pacing. “Yeah. What’s going on? Nobody’s told me anything.”

"Sorry about that, do you want to have a seat?"

“Is he alive?” Fao barely dared to ask the question. 

They softened, giving him a small smile. "He is, he's currently in our resus bit. He's very not well at the minute, and we're waiting to get him stable enough to take up to ICU."

That wasn’t unusual for Finn, as awful as that was. His shoulders slumped with relief that his brother was still alive, and he scanned the doctor’s face to try and work out what was going on. “Was it a seizure? He’s had an infection brewing and that always sets him off, are we talking status? If you’re waiting on ICU I’m assuming he’s been tubed? Have you spoken with his consultant? I think he was looking at trying to arrange an admission anyway.”

"We're not entirely sure what's been going on. He was picked up at the roadside, by the sounds of it he'd fallen quite a few times. He's got some pretty significant head injuries at the moment. We've not intubated him yet, no, but it's looking likely that's the way it's heading. He's currently just about managing with some extra support, but it's…he's got a significant chest infection, pneumonia, and we're not sure if the falls he's had has made it worse, but his lungs aren't working as they should be." He sighed. "We've not been able to really have a chat with him at all, he's been very agitated and quite combative, so we've sedated him a little bit, for his safety. He currently has a little piece of plastic in his mouth, just to help him keep his airways open. It's not the most comfortable for him, but he needs it with the medications and the stuff going on."

Evidently this was going to be a long conversation, and Fao was sore from the sheer amount of pacing he’d been doing. He sat down, nodding. “Alright. I got a call off my mum about an hour ago saying he’d gone missing and was he at mine.” He murmured. “Has he had a CT for the head injuries? He can be really agitated and combative especially when he’s feeling overwhelmed. He doesn’t like to be touched, he doesn’t like a lot of people around him, especially after a seizure. I’m happy to give you any social or medical history that would help you out. He really hates things on his face, it’s a struggle to keep oxygen on him when he’s postictal, he’s a nightmare. He doesn’t always tolerate the OP well as he comes around so you’re best keeping him sedated a bit. He’s well known to ICU, his seizures unfortunately often lead to him in status and needing to be intubated.” He wasn’t trying to tell this doctor how to do their job, but it was hard when this was his little brother. 

"That's very helpful to know, thank you." They said, and meant it. "We're just currently waiting on the CT report, so we'll be able to give you a bit more insight then. Unfortunately his agitation has been pretty constant, even when left alone. And, with the infection, he needs to be on the oxygen, he's not managing without it at the moment."

“Yeah, I appreciate that.” Fao said. “He’s epileptic from a tbi as a ten year old, he always really struggles with his seizures when he picks up infections, and he’s been through some difficult personal stress in the last six months or so as well as some meds changes which have also made his seizures more difficult to control.”

"Of course. You can come and sit with him, if you'd like? I will warn you he does have quite a few injuries, he might not look quite like himself. 

“Nothing I can’t handle, I’m sure. I was with him when he had his initial TBI.” Fao said, standing up. “I’d like to see him.”

"I can't imagine how difficult that must have been."

“Makes Afghanistan look like a walk in the park.”

"Did you serve?"

He nodded. “Four tours, medical corps.”

"Wow, that's a lot."

“Yeah. Can I see my brother now?”

"Of course. Can i get you a cup of tea? Coffee?"

“I’m fine, thanks.” 

"Alright, just let me know. I'll let you though."

“Thanks.” Fao said, following him through into Resus. It was busy as always, though it was familiar to him now. His eyes flicked over to the bays, trying to find his brother’s. He hated this, being on the back foot with him. As much as moving out had been so much better for his mental health, it had its challenges too. 

Finn was crowded with doctors and nurses, poking and prodding at him. Unlike normal, he was too still, too quiet. While they'd obviously tried to clean the blood from his head injuries, each period of agitation had quickly opened them back up. His shoulder was almost in a sling, though it was clear he'd fought against that not so long ago. 

Fao’s eyes flicked critically over the monitors, trying to gauge where Finn was at. Not great. He took a moment at the foot of the bed, watching them work. Finn really didn’t seem like Finn, though at least he wasn’t fighting them in that moment. He fiddled with the lighter in his pocket,something to keep his hands busy. He’d instinctively reached for his tags, but they weren’t there any more, and he needed something to do. 

One of the nurses caught sight of Fao in her peripheral. "Hi, you must be Finn’s brother?"

Fao nodded. “Yeah. Sorry to linger, I didn’t want to interrupt you all.”

"No, no, of course not. Come on, you can come say hi to him."

Fao pushed through to come along side his brother, a stark contrast to how he usually was at work. They’d not recognised him yet, but he hadn’t been there long, and he was likely just another faceless surgeon when he was down there. He gently reached out to take Finn’s hand, cautious of a reaction from him. 

“Hey, Finn. It’s me, it’s Fao.”

Fao's voice, as it always seemed to, managed to break through to Finn. He blinked at Fao, his gaze dropping to their hands. 

“Hi. Got yourself into a bit of a mess, eh?”

"Oh, he definitely recognised you there." The nurse smiled, fussing over Finn. "Bet you're glad he's here, yeah? You'll have had him worried sick."

Fao squeezed his hand. “You’re a nightmare, you know that? Causing all this lot trouble, too. Look at you.”

The recognition he'd had quickly vanished, Finn looking straight through the lot of them. He pulled his hand from Fao's to rub at his face, his hand coming back red.

“It’s okay.” Fao soothed. “Do you think I could try and clean these wounds for him? I’m a doctor, I’ve got ID somewhere.” He asked, digging around in his pockets. 

"We shouldn't…" She hesitated. It was the most settled Finn had been, and the closest any of them had gotten to him. "I'll grab you some supplies."

He finally found his ID, the lanyard jangling. “Here, and I can give you my GMC if you want to document it.” He said, offering it to her. “Thank you.”

"Ah, brill. You know what the paperwork is like. Do you want a seat?"

“That would be great, thank you.”

"Won't be long." She said softly, resting her hand on his arm before disappearing off. 

“Thanks.” He murmured, leaning on the rails of the bed whilst he waited, watching his brother carefully. 

Finn seemed to fade back in, catching his brother’s eye and holding his gaze. A frown flickered across his face and he shoved his arm in Fao's general direction with a groan.

Fao took his hand. “Hey. Bet you feel shit right now, eh?”

He spat the plastic from his mouth, dislodging the mask on his face.  "My chest hurts."

“Mask needs to stay on, Finn.” Fao told him, but didn’t move to adjust it. “It’s going to hurt, you’re not well.” 

"Then help." He narrowed his eyes, his chest crackling with each breath. The cough didn't take long to follow, but Finn didn't move to cover his mouth or turn his head. 

“Here, let’s get this back on.” Fao said, adjusting the mask. “I know it’s horrid, but it will help you out.” He was definitely out of it, though seemed more coherent than before - coherent enough to complain, anyway. 

Finn scowled as Fao got close, but whatever argument he had planned was quickly lost. His arms stretched out, his shoulder dislocating once more, and his back arched in a seizure. His eyes were fixed in the corner as he groaned, his body contorted and stuck. It finished as quickly as it had started, the extra exertion making Finn struggle and cough.

Shit. 

Fao winced as Finn’s shoulder slipped out of place again, as his back arched and the seizure took him. He was about to hit the emergency bell when it stopped, Finn struggling with his breathing again as his body tried to catch up. He considered going to find someone as the nurse reappeared, chair in hand. 

“He’s just had a seizure, all of about two seconds long, and that shoulder’s gone again.” 

She winced. "Ah, bless him. I'll get some more diazepam for him. The anaesthetists are on their way down, they'll probably have a chat with you. You probably know them, at least better than you know us."

“Maybe, yeah. I’ve not been here long. He needs his neuro really.”

"I think it's Dr Cunningham on this evening."

“Perfect.” Fao said, unable to stop the smile. “He’s Finn’s main consultant.”

"Oh, that's worked out well then." She said gently, moving to check on Finn. 

The younger man had returned to his vacant staring, though still struggled to catch his breath. His saturations hovered just under acceptable, and the doctor sighed from behind them.

"We'd hoped to wait, but I think we should go ahead and get that chest drain in now."

Fao hummed. “Worth doing whilst he’s a bit more settled than he has been.” He took a seat gladly in the chair the nurse had brought him, stroking gently through Finn’s hair. 

"Right, let's get an airway dump, just in case, and then give him a little more sedation. No point making it worse for him."

“Can I stay with him?”

"He's fine to stay." The nurse told the doctor. "He's fine."

Fao glanced at the doctor, relieved the nurse seemed to be on his side. He couldn’t leave Finn again, he just couldn’t. Besides, clearly he was doing something right, because his brother was settled. 

"We'll get you to sit on his other side, yeah? We might have to move you, so just bear with." The doctor happily listened to the nurse. "How are we getting on with that sedation? Got it? Brilliant. Let's get this done for him."

#sicktember #whump writing #whump prompt #faolan blackwood #whump #oc #fic #finn daniels #sicktember 2023 #day 6 #sick and Injured #seizures #pneumonia #chest drain #worried family #the beauty of this one is nobody knowing fao

[meraki24601]

Would you be opened to writing a whump prompt for me? I'm writing a story about a Whumpee returning after having been missing for 4 months. 

If so: Could you write the scene in which caretaker (who looks for missing Whumpee every single night) stumbles across a very sick Whumpee (it's been raining, probably pneumonia) and sorry I don't know if this is too much for you but anywhoo

Caretaker takes Whumpee to their home, Whumpee who is just so feverish but caretaker can tell that Whumpee is different, the way they flinch at slight touch

Maybe during caretaking, caretaker decides that they don't care about Whumpee's flinching, and they just hug them. Whumpee is so painfully touch-starved they just start crying in caretaker's arms.

This is a bonus but only if you have time to do it or even care: caretaker's mother is a doctor, she comes down as soon as the door opens, and helps somehow

thanks if so!

For some reason, I didn't get a notification when you sent this. I found it, though! Hope you like it.

---*-***-*---

4 Months

I spent day 1 of the search stuck in the police station. The moment Whumpee didn't make it home, I made the call, but they had to wait to put in the report. I answered questions and gave evidence for hours. Their last known whereabouts were just outside the grocery store we always go to. 

On day 3, they found video evidence of Whumpee getting in Whumper's car. Their hands were tied behind their back. Whumper looked up at the camera and smiled before closing the car door. They sent out new wanted alerts within 5 minutes of finding it. 

Day 7, the police sent out search parties. They had a satellite picture of Whumpee tied to a fence just outside a town two states over. They… didn't look good. By the time they arrived at the scene, all they could find was a bloody smear. 

Day 30 came and passed. There were two more sightings. Each one was worse than the last. The FBI got involved. 

On day 61, the FBI told me they were closing the case. They had received an image of Whumpee lying dead on the ground. They couldn't find the body or Whumper. They were going to keep a file open on Whumper, but Whumpee was officially considered dead. It was a lie, though. There's no way Whumper actually killed Whumpee. 

Day 78, I moved back in with my mother. I didn't want her to disappear like Whumpee had. That same day, she opened a package in the mail containing a finger. The police didn't believe me. The package disappeared before I could turn it in. After that, I couldn't help but worry every time she left for her nursing shift at the hospital. 

Day 94, my mother held me as I cried. It was their birthday. I refuse to give up. Whumpee is still alive. I will find them, with or without the police's help.

Day 122, four months on the dot since Whumpee disappeared, I found them tied to a tree in the forest behind my mother's house. Technically, Bunny, my mom's Doberman, found them after pulling her leash out of my hands. When I caught up with her, she’d dropped her favorite ball in Whumpee's hand and was whining softly.

I froze, looking at the person I had been searching for over the past 4 months. They were soaked to the bone and covered in dirt and leaves, seemingly having been left outside through the rain storm that had just passed maybe an hour earlier. For a moment, I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive. 

A deep cough that made my own chest hurt echoed through the trees. Whumpee's hand, with one finger missing, shifted slightly to roll Bunny's ball back toward her. The dog grabbed the ball, bouncing around her found friend with reckless abandon. The soft sob that pushed its way from my throat caught Bunny's attention, and she ran back to me; the ball in her mouth displaying a dark, bloody handprint. 

Bunny dashed back toward the house in fear as I screamed Whumpee's name. They didn't respond. I crashed to my knees on the muddy forest floor in front of Whumpee. They barely had the strength left to lift their head, but they still flinched as I reached for them. 

"Don't." Whumpee's voice was hoarse as they pushed one single word at me. Their eyes were unfocused, and each breath rattled on its way in. Their whole body shivered despite the humidity after the summer rain. 

"You're safe, Whumpee. It's me." I whispered, "I'm going to cut the ropes. Just hold still for a minute longer."

Whumpee's eyes were huge as I shifted closer. When I reached out to comfort them by patting their leg, a strangled cry broke through the silence that had fallen over the forest. Whumpee pulled against the ropes already cutting into their skin. Their struggles didn't last for long. What energy they had left them as their face turned even paler. They were able to tilt their head just enough that when they threw up a mixture of stomach acid and blood dripped on the ground next to them. 

I took advantage of their distraction and quickly cut the ropes, catching Whumpee as they nearly fell into the small puddle of bile. They pulled away from my grip. I hushed them and shifted them carefully into my arms. They were light… so light in my arms. Their heart beat quickly against my chest, but even as I stood, I could feel it start to slow. 

"Mom! I need help. Get the kit!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as I sprinted back to the house. The windows to her room were open, and a twitching curtain told me she had heard me. She had probably started watching the moment Bunny came back without me. 

The back door was already open. The chairs around the table had been pushed back against the wall, a plastic tablecloth we had bought for a picnic was spread out neatly on the table with the large first aid kit open at the head, and mom was scrubbing her hands in the sink. "Lay them down carefully on the table. Did you check for injuries?" My mother asked with her work face on. 

"They're bleeding! Of course they're hurt!" I couldn't help but yell back as I spread the shaking Whumpee on the kitchen table. How many meals have we shared at this table? Game nights before my father passed away, and we suddenly didn't have enough time?

"I wasn't asking if they were hurt, Caretaker. I was asking how and where." Mother's hands, shrouded in gloves, waved me back. "You need to step out for a minute. Change into clean clothes, wash your hands, and get me water and the softest wash rags you can find. It's going to be alright. Take a moment to calm down. I need you focused and ready to help."

I couldn't leave the kitchen fast enough. Every part of my body yearned to burst back in there and demand answers I knew couldn't be answered yet. So, I did as I was told. Water sloshed out of the bucket as I stumbled back toward Whumpee, but I couldn't find it in myself to care. 

My mother's soothing voice brought me to a stop just outside the kitchen door. "There you go. You're safe now. Take a deep breath in and now out. That's alright, that's alright. You did a good job. Steady now. I'm going to turn you on your side just a bit so I can see your back, okay?"

A deep, scream broke off into a fit of barely supported coughing. I opened the door. 

Whumpee had shifted, their body pulling against my mother's hands as they tried to curl up into a tight ball. The moment they saw me, however, those weak struggles turned into something almost primal. A thin sheen of sweat now covered their body. Mom barely managed to keep Whumpee from slipping off the table. 

All at once, all of the strength dripped out of their body. With eyes half-hooded, Whumpee watched carefully as I approached. I could hear their strained whisper, tainted with tight coughs, "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real." Their body stiffened. Not a good sign. 

"I am real, Whumpee." I sighed. They flinched away from the sound of my voice, eyes popping and searching for the source. My mom's fingers prodded at an open wound and caused them to gasp which threw them into another coughing fit. 

"Most of the older injuries have been treated. Not by me, by someone else." My mother's voice cut through the steadily building fog in my mind. "Malnourished, dehydrated, severe blood loss, gashes and bruises covering their chest. I also expect they have a rather serious case of pneumonia. Coughing, confusion, fever, nausea, and seeming chest pain outside of the visible injuries. 

"I need to be able to check their back before I feel comfortable enough to move them to the hospital. Can you help me turn them over?"

Each time I approach or make as if to touch Whumpee, they whisper in panicked tones as they flinch away, pushing their body as far away from me as they can in their weakened state. Over and over. My mother cautioned me to move slowly, but nothing seemed to help. I still wasn't completely confident they knew who I actually was. Each flinch stretched Whumpee's closing wounds. 

Finally, I'd had enough dancing around it. Whumpee cried out and tried to escape as I slid my arms under them and started to lift them up so they rested against my chest. 

Whumpee's struggles grew harder, fighting to free themselves, but I whispered comforting words in their ear. As my mother checked on their back, Whumpee began to ease up, I could feel their fever as they eventually started to cling to me instead of pushing away. Tears stained my shirt as my mother finished her task and stepped out of the room to call the hospital and the police. 

"I tried so hard to find you. I want you to know I never gave up." After my quiet declaration, Whumpee went limp in my arms. As they slept, I made myself a promise. I would never lose someone like this again. 

#whump #whump fic #whump scenario #whumpee #caretaker #rescue #whump writing #whump ideas #whump tropes #whumper #kidnapping #sick #pneumonia

[shion-yu]

A Safe Place (part 4/4) [day 24]

Cliff’s past experiences in hospitals have all been bad. For @monthofsick day 24: Panic and @badthingshappenbingo Paralyzed by Fear. 3,698 words, original work, TWs emeto (mild x1), hospital/surgical content, child abuse/trauma. If you'd like to skip the first half which is a childhood flashback, control-find the word “eighteen”.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 - This is the final part! Thanks for sticking with me guys.

Cliff’s fear of hospitals first began when he was three years old. He’d been inside the hospital several times because his dad worked there, but he hadn’t really processed it as anything significant until one day when he went there with his mother, who’d been tasked with watching him because the nanny was off. Cliff had been doing everything “wrong” that day, and Hana Barrows had reached her limit after a spilled glass of orange juice. She dragged him by the wrist to the car and drove to the hospital, swearing loudly all the way there. Cliff was silent because even back then he knew that saying anything would just make things worse.

Hana brought Cliff up to Dr. Claude Barrows’ office without warning, ignoring the secretary shouting after her as she passed without signing in. She yanked Claude’s door open without knocking and found him hunched over a pile of paperwork.

“What in the - Hana! What on earth are you doing here?! Why is Cliff here?”

“I’m not a babysitter!” She shouted as she shoved Cliff towards his father, who would have fallen on his face had Claude not caught him. “You promised me I’d never have to babysit!”

“Keep your voice down,” Claude hissed. He sat Cliff on the chair he’d been sitting on and turned to his irate wife. “It’s one day in his entire life Hana, one goddamn day.”

Hana let out an angry groan of frustration and slapped her hands on Claude’s chest, grabbing the lapels of his lab coat and pulling him forward. “I never wanted this! I’m not doing it!”

They squabbled for another few minutes, young Cliff staring at his velcro-up shoes and distracting himself trying to remember how the last nanny had taught him how to tie laces. He’d forgotten how after his mom fired her, because Cliff had been too attached to her.

“You can’t leave him here Hana, I’m working,” Claude said finally, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Well figure it out, because I’m not taking him home with me,” Hana snapped back. With that she stalked out of the office, not stopping despite Claude shouting after her. He followed her out, and Cliff was left alone in his dad’s office, on his big spinny office chair, with no idea what he was supposed to do now. He was old enough to know that his parents didn’t like him, although he didn’t understand why. He didn’t talk much but they still said he was too noisy. His big sister Moira was nice to him, but that was when she was around. Usually she was too busy with her high school friends and sports to be home much.

Cliff tried to climb down from the chair, but it was really tall and he was afraid of falling. Still, he eased his lower half down, stretching his short legs to try and feel for the floor. He felt it all at once when he fell, smacking his forehead on the hard floor. He bit his lip, trying not to cry. His parents hated when he cried. Still, he couldn’t help it as a few little tears rolled down his chubby cheeks.

“Did you fall, honey?”

Cliff looked up to find a young woman kneeling in front of him. He nodded, wiping his face with tiny fists. “Aw, poor thing,” she said.

“He’s my son. Do you like kids?” Dr. Barrows was back, standing in the doorway - without Cliff’s mom.

“Yeah, totally,” the girl said. “Sorry Dr. Barrows, it’s just I heard a kid crying and the door was open so-”

“It’s fine,” Cliff’s father responded. “Actually, I need you to watch him for the rest of the day.”

“M-me? But, um, I’m a medical student, I don’t think...”

“Part of being a doctor is doing what your attending orders, and I’m telling you to babysit my kid until my shift ends at seven,” Dr. Barrows said sharply. “Is that a problem?”

“No - I mean, sort of, my clinical ends at four, and-”

“Great. I don’t care what you do with him, just keep him out of the way. I’ll pay you for your time.” Dr. Barrows ignored any further protest from the student and shoved two hundred-dollar bills in her hand before leaving.

The student shook her head in disbelief. “Alright, Cliff is it?” She asked. Cliff nodded, clutching the hem of his shirt nervously. “Right. Well, Cliff, I guess it’s you and me until seven...”

The student was nice, all things considered, but she clearly had no interest in babysitting. She had long legs and walked so quickly that Cliff had to run to keep up. A lot of times she’d turn a corner before he did and he thought he’d lost her, but she always found him again. They ate lunch in the cafeteria and she let him draw with a pen and a piece of printer paper while she did work. Cliff honestly didn’t understand what was going on, but he went with it because he was taught not to complain and didn't want to be left behind.

It was around 5pm when the student said, “You’d rather be with your dad, right? He has a pretty cool facial reconstruction starting now. Let’s go watch.” She led Cliff to the gallery, a large room with chairs above the surgical theater with a glass window for an audience. Cliff’s dad was scrubbed in, hyper focused and didn’t notice the spectators. “The surgery will last a few hours,” the student told Cliff. “I’m going home, so just stay here and don’t move until your dad comes and gets you.”

Cliff looked at her, confused. She was going to leave him here by himself? “It’s fine,” she said. “Your dad’s right down there. Just stay where you are and whatever you do, don’t move from this room, got it?” Cliff had no other choice but to nod obediently. Then he was alone.

At first, Cliff was excited to see what his dad did for work. A large woman was lying on the table - sleeping, Cliff thought - and everybody was dressed in funny clothes. His dad was wearing a long mint gown, goggles and a puffy scrub cap, which made him laugh. That laughter died in his throat when he saw his father take a long, silver knife and cut into the sleeping woman’s face.

Cliff screamed, but nobody was there to hear him. He started to panic and it felt like there was no air in the room. There was blood and the sound of a drill. Cliff began to cry, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrible scene. His father seemed to be tearing this lady’s face apart, and he did so for two hours before pulling the skin back up and sewing it all back together.

“Wonderful,” his father said in a confident tone. “Good work gentlemen.” Someone was helping him take off his bloody robes. At this moment, he finally looked up at what should have been an empty gallery, but instead he saw his traumatized three year old son. “What the hell? Is that my son?” Cliff heard him say loudly. Cliff was terrified. What if his father got mad and did the same thing to him? He hid under a chair in the corner of the gallery until his father flew into the room and dragged him out.

“I’m sorry, I stayed like she told me to, I’m sorry,” Cliff sobbed. He was so scared, pushing his father’s face away. He kept thinking of how bloody his dad’s hands had been. “Don’t hit me!”

“Cliff, shut up, you’re embarrassing me,” Claude said angrily. “It’s not your fault though, that stupid medical student - her career is over,” he growled. “Come on. Let’s go home.” He picked Cliff up and carried his crying child out of the hospital, and together they went home. They never talked about what Cliff had seen, but for years he had nightmares about it. He was scared of what his father was capable of, and every time Claude yelled at him or hit him, Cliff wondered if it would go further - if he’d end up on that table being cut up next if he didn’t behave.

By the time Cliff reached middle school, he understood that his father’s job was to be a surgeon and that he actually helped people, even if it was scary - and horrible - to see in person. But when he had his stomach ulcer and had to be hospitalized for a few days, his fear of hospitals was renewed and solidified. His parents were furious at him. Even with a fever and in so much pain, his father yelled at him every step of the way. Every time Cliff cried, or threw up, or panicked because he was afraid of needles, it was made ten times worse by his parents’ obsession with Cliff not spoiling their image of what a perfect son should be like. The pressure they put on him while he was in the hospital just made him sicker. It was a terrible experience, and Cliff vowed never to let himself get sick enough to end up in a hospital again.

Unfortunately, these sorts of decisions are not truly one’s own. Now Cliff was in the hospital with pneumonia, and although he was eighteen and told himself he was an adult who knew better, he was still scared. It was a different hospital, but everything smelled the same. The nurses acted the same - nice, but brisk. He felt the same helpless feeling of being surrounded by people who didn’t understand him, and most of all he was terrified of his father finding out he was here. He was sure he’d be furious if he discovered Cliff had ended up here after disrespecting his mother by leaving home. He thought about ripping the IV tubing out of his arm and making a run for it, but he didn’t think his legs would hold him.

When Elliot was next to him, Cliff felt like he could keep it together. After all, he’d never had someone like Elliot to hold on to during these scary moments before. But now Elliot had gone home for the night and Cliff was alone in a tiny room without windows in the hospital, and he was losing it.

Cliff didn’t realize he was having a panic attack until the nurse came in because his heart monitor was going off. She tried to settle him down, speaking to him in hushed tones and reassuring him that he was safe, but he didn’t believe her. All he could think about was his prior bad experiences in hospitals. His entire chest felt tight and he was crying, which made it difficult to breathe in conjunction with his already junky lungs.

“Cliff, you need to slow down your breathing for me,” the nurse said, but Cliff couldn’t. He couldn’t control it. He was just as scared as the day he’d hid under the chair above the operating room from his father, abandoned and afraid to trust anybody.

The thing that did stop him panicking was the uncontrollable coughing fit that came on. All the tears and snot that came with crying choked him, and then he couldn’t stop. He coughed until he vomited onto his lap, tears and mucus mixing into a horrible puddle that he could feel seeping through the sheets onto his legs. He was so disgusting, he couldn’t stand himself. Elliot was right to leave him here alone.

The nurse called the other nurse for backup, and soon they were changing Cliff’s sheets together, changing his nasal cannula to a simple face mask while he was so snotty from crying, and one of them administered something through his IV that made him feel sleepy. Cliff’s nurse asked him if it would make him feel better to call his boyfriend.

“What time is it?” Cliff asked, his voice hoarse from crying and throwing up.

“Eleven,” she told him.

Cliff shook his head no. He had already woken Elliot up enough times this week. “It’s okay. He’s probably asleep.” They hadn't agreed on a time that Elliot was going to come back, Cliff realized. Elliot had said he’d be back in the morning. The morning could be eight, or it could be as late as noon. That was, if Elliot came back at all. No, he'd come back. Elliot kept his word - usually. Then again, Cliff had never expected Elliot to trick him into coming to the hospital. He understood he was really sick and needed help, he did, but the betrayal still stung.

After his nurse did another albuterol treatment through the mask, she changed Cliff back to a new (not snot-clogged) nasal cannula and left him to get some sleep. Cliff couldn’t rest though. Even with the lights off, all the machines cast a glow that kept the room too bright. The faint beeping of his heart monitor and the drip of his IV fluids reminded him too much of the last time he was in the hospital, and he felt vaguely nauseous despite being sure there was nothing left in his stomach. He curled in a tight ball and held his knees to his chest, trembling. He missed Elliot and wished he was here to make him feel safer right now. Instead, all he had was himself and a very long night ahead of him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Cliff woke up drenched in sweat. He didn’t know where he was and immediately began to panic, but then he felt someone pushing him back down and shushing him.

“Elliot?” Cliff blinked in confusion. He’d finally cried himself to sleep in the wee hours of the morning but he hadn’t expected to sleep long enough that it was already within business hours. “What time is it?” His voice crackled, laden with wetness, and he let out a congested, barking cough. It made his sides ache and he gripped them automatically.

Elliot smiled at him and ran a delicate hand through Cliff’s damp hair. “Hi baby,” he said fondly. “It’s about nine AM.”

“Really?” Cliff glanced around, slowly remembering the details of yesterday. “I’m so hot,” he muttered.

“I think your fever broke,” Elliot said gently. “How do you feel?”

Cliff considered things. He felt significantly less achy than last night and it was easier to breathe. He didn’t feel like his brain was entirely full of sand - maybe just halfway. “Better,” he said. “Can I go home?”

“That’s up to the doctor,” Elliot said. “I ordered you some breakfast though. Do you feel up to eating? I got you oatmeal and toast.”

Cliff grimaced, remembering all the vomiting he’d done yesterday. “I’m not sure.”

“You can see how you feel when it gets here,” Elliot said. “The nurse said your breathing got a lot better after your second steroid injection.”

Only now did Cliff notice the lack of oxygen tubing on his face. He’d fallen asleep with it on and Cliff was shocked he’d really been so passed out that the nurse had been able to give him IV meds, do vitals, and remove his oxygen without waking him up. He must have been truly exhausted.

“Thanks for coming back,” Cliff said suddenly, looking at his hands instead of Elliot’s face.

“Of course I came back,” Elliot responded. “I promised you, didn’t I?”

Promises didn’t always work out, Cliff thought to himself, but he just nodded yes. “Well, I missed you,” was all he responded. “So thanks.”

He was surprised by the quick kiss that Elliot stole from him, even though he hadn’t brushed his teeth since yesterday morning. “E-Elliot,” he stuttered, red faced as he sat back and covered his mouth with his hands in embarrassment.

“I missed you too,” Elliot said. His smile was so kind and genuine. It made Cliff feel so much better. “You did incredible staying here overnight by yourself.”

Cliff understood that Elliot was babying him a little, but he also realized that he was unable to stop himself from smiling into his hands. Something inside him felt so content when Elliot was proud of him. He wanted to feel like that over and over.

Breakfast arrived and Cliff picked at the food, trying to get down a few bites mostly because Elliot was staring at him so hopefully. He really wasn’t hungry, but he managed half of a piece of toast and two bites of oatmeal before he couldn’t manage any more. It was difficult to eat when his cough was still so harsh, overtaking him at random moments and leaving him doubled over in bed, his arms clutching his sides in pain. At least he managed to keep the food down, though.

The doctor came by shortly after Cliff finished eating and examined him. He listened to Cliff’s lungs and cough, nodding along with his own conclusions. “I believe it’s safe to send you home, but you have to promise to rest and do nothing else for several more days,” he said finally. “How does that sound to you?”

Cliff nodded in agreement. He’d gladly stay in Elliot’s bed for another week if it meant getting rid of this awful cough - preferably, far away from any hospitals. Elliot awkwardly raised his hand a little before speaking. “Excuse me Doctor, but we start classes back at school in the city on Monday. Will he be okay by then?”

“Hmm. You’ll have to play that by ear, but as long as he gets proper rest and takes his meds, no fevers, then probably. Do you have to walk far to get to class?”

Cliff shrugged. Sometimes, not always. Elliot answered for him though. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t walk too much,” his boyfriend said confidently.

“In that case, I’m not concerned about discharging him,” the doctor said. “I’ll put in the orders and we’ll have you out of here in a few hours. I do recommend you keep using a nebulizer at home for a few days and as needed, do you have one?”

Cliff shook his head no at the same time Elliot said, “We’ll get one for him, we just need the medicine.”

“You’ve got someone taking good care of you, I see,” the doctor chuckled. “I’ll write scripts for that too then. Make sure you follow up with an asthma doctor as soon as you can.”

Elliot thanked the doctor several times, Cliff echoing the sentiment with a simple thank you, and then all they had to do was wait for paperwork. In the meantime the nurse helped Cliff get back into normal clothes, took out his IV and detached him from all the equipment. He had sticky residue on his finger and chest from the oxygen and heart monitoring leeds that didn’t seem to want to come off, but it didn’t matter. He’d have plenty of time to scrub it off later. Cliff was just relieved to be escaping this place without a longer stay or his father finding out and showing up.

At discharge, Elliot bundled Cliff up in a warm jacket and hat even though it was late August. He pushed Cliff in a wheelchair down to the lobby, then ran to get the car. Cliff insisted he could walk, but he wasn’t entirely convinced of his own strength right now so didn’t push the matter much. He waited patiently for Elliot and waited to feel relieved for when they had officially left the premises of the hospital. It had only been one night, but it felt like a long time. The fresh air felt good on his skin and he took a deep breath, appreciating it even as it made him cough.

Elliot pulled up at patient pickup and helped Cliff into the car, settling him in the passenger’s seat. “My mom’s gonna pick up all your meds and find a nebulizer for you at home,” he explained as he drove. “We’re going to follow all the directions to a tee, get you straightened up before we head back to school this weekend.” He sounded confident about this plan, as if it were foolproof. “Do you want to shower when we get home, or go straight to bed?”

“Shower,” Cliff said. He didn’t want to smell like a hospital anymore. “Sorry about all this.”

Elliot shook his head. “It’s okay. I mean... I was really scared. But you’re going to be fine, so...”

“That’s what I mean,” Cliff said, looking at Elliot seriously. “I’m sorry for scaring you. And being a burden and crying and... I guess what I’m really trying to say is thank you for being there.”

Suddenly there were tears running down Elliot’s cheeks and Cliff panicked. “Wait, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

Elliot pulled over on the curb and wiped his eyes. He sniffled and gave a tiny laugh at the same time, which sounded funny to Cliff. “I’m just really glad you’re okay,” Elliot said, taking Cliff’s hand in his own and squeezing it. “And you’re welcome. But you’re not a burden and it’s okay. I love all of you, Cliff. When you’re sick or scared and lonely... I want to be there for you. Do you understand that?”

Cliff didn’t answer right away, not trusting his own voice not to waver right now. But finally he said, “I’m trying to.” It was more honest than the automatic ‘Yes’ he had very nearly said.

Elliot smiled a little sadly and leaned over to give Cliff a kiss on the cheek. “Okay, as long as you’re trying to,” he said. He looked both fond and sad. “Now let’s get you home and in bed. We’ve got a big school year waiting for us next week and you’re not getting out of that bed until Friday.”

“The nurse said a little exercise is good,” Cliff pointed out.

“Some very light exercise,” Elliot said. “Bed to couch and back is plenty. Got it?”

Cliff smiled. He found it amusing when Elliot got bossy. “Sure,” he said. “You’re in charge, El.”

Elliot grinned and started driving again. “You’re damn right I am.”

Fin.

#shionwrites #sickfic #oc: cliff #oc: elliot #hospital setting #illness whump #pneumonia fic #sicknario #fever whump #sick whump #angst #tw: minor whump #male whump #oc sickfic #whump #bad things happen bingo #paralyzed by fear #novemetober rescheduled #novemetober 2023 #day 24 #panic #emeto #tw: emeto

[celosiaa]

i would give my breath away

Jon is severely ill, and Martin is hanging on by a thread. Good thing he's got his friends back to look after him.

I found this fic in ye old archives when I was planning to write something else!

this fic is loosely a missing scene from the incredible traveller19's fic, "Death is the Easy Way Out." I have gifted this work to them on AO3--please give them a visit and check out their fabulous writing here!!

my Jon is a Jordanian Arabic-speaker! A couple translations to mention: habibi = my love/darling, hayati = my life

let me know what you think if you can <3 cw: hospital setting, panic attacks

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady rhythm of the heart monitor has set Martin into somewhat of a trance, the beats matched perfectly to his breaths—in and out; in and out. In his mind’s eye the dingy, patterned wallpaper begins to expand and contract with his lungs, the shapes spinning and enlarging, then slowing back down to size. None of it really draws his focus anymore, however.

He is far, far too exhausted for that.

“Martin,” a soft voice calls from behind him—and he jumps nearly a foot in the air. Had he nodded off? Betrayed Jon—had Jon woken without him, alone, afraid?

A panicked glance at the hospital bed before him shows the same picture he had seen before lights out: his husband, thinned out almost to the extent of his archivist days, oxygen cannula in his nose, dark shadows beneath his eyes. A rattle to his breath. But still sleeping—more peacefully than he had been, even. And thank the gods for that.

“Hey, you’re alright.”

Having nearly forgotten about the voice behind him, Martin finds himself blinking in the light spilling over from the doorway into the darkened room. Two figures stand in silhouette before him. Even if his eyes hadn’t had the time to adjust yet, he would recognize the gentle presence of Tim and Sasha anywhere.

“Hey,” he attempts—but the words come out hoarsely, and he clears his throat. When is the last time he had something to drink? “Hey, guys. Sorry.”

“Here,” Sasha says as she takes a seat beside him, mercifully holding out what appears to be a water bottle. How could she have known? Had he been…obvious?

Gods, he hopes not. He’d been doing his damnedest to be fine.

“How’s he doing?” Tim asks, going to sit on the opposite side of Jon’s bed, as has become habit at this point. “Has he been awake at all?”

“Since…erm, since you left, yeah. Mostly just to cough.”

“Has he been…you know…”

“Confused? No, his fever’s still staying down. Thankfully.”

“Good. That’s—”

“Better, yeah. For now.”

Beep. Beep.

Martin feels more than sees the glance shared between Tim and Sasha; braces himself against the irritation rising ever more easily in his gut as the days have passed. They don’t deserve that. They don’t deserve it, they haven’t done anything—

“Martin…”

“What?” he snaps, ashamed of it as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

Right. Level-headed Blackwood strikes again.

Strikes in an even more devastating way than intended—as Jon begins to stir at the sudden sound. Martin sucks in a sharp breath as he watches Jon’s eyebrows knit together, and his right hand reaches up toward the oxygen cannula.

“Oh no no, darling. Let it alone,” Martin soothes quickly, gently prying Jon’s fingers from the tubing. “It’s alright.”

At the closeness of Martin’s voice, Jon’s eyes begin to flutter open, wincing at the fluorescence from the doorway. Tim hurries to block out as much as he can of it at once, for which Martin finds himself suffering a twinge of guilt and gratitude. Shove it down. Put it away for later, that’s all there is to do, because the guilt could send him spinning and spinning and spinning—

Stop. Stop it.

“Jon? You with us?” Sasha asks in scarce more than a whisper.

“Mmm…here.”

Hoarse and shallow as it may be, something wonderful soars in Martin’s stomach at the sound of his husband’s voice. He’d been sleeping so much today—not that it was a bad thing at all, but…it still gives him comfort all the same. He’s still with us. Mentally and physically, still with us.

The relief he feels washing over him like the tide is turned quickly into ice by the sound of Jon’s coughing. Sleep, while wonderful and healing, also comes with drawbacks when you’ve managed to develop what’s shaped up to be a severe pneumonia—everything has been settling in his chest the longer his mind remains too drowsy to trigger his cough reflex. And it certainly sounds it, by the way it sounds like he’s trying to force the ocean through a straw just to bring something up.

“Okay, alright, I’ve got you,” Martin says as he leans Jon’s trembling frame forward, make it easier to clear his lungs. As he has done so many times over the last week that it has become routine, he uses one hand to brace Jon forward, the other to move the box of tissues and an emesis bin within his immediate sight. More likely than not, Jon was going to bring up something. They had learned that in a rather unpleasant fashion on the first night of admission.

This time, however. This time, Jon’s airways sound so constricted around the mucus blocking them that he can barely get any air in at all. No loosening rattle in his chest to be heard—none at all, and rather than reaching for either of the objects before him, Jon uses a free hand to clutch at his chest while he gasps.

“Jon?! Jon, it’s alright, we’ll get help—Tim—“

“On it.”

Tim quickly reaches over Jon’s bed for the call button, while Sasha takes the more direct route of poking her head outside the door. Sooner than later, two nurses stride into the room, taking in the situation just as Jon’s monitor starts to blare its alarm.

CAN’T BREATHE. CAN’T BREATHE.

It might as well be screaming those words directly into Martin’s ears, with the panic that hits him. How could everyone be so calm? It’s not right, he’s not safe, he can’t breathe he can’t breathe please god help him I need him please—

“Martin? Hey hey hey, alright. Sit down, he’s alright.”

“No no no no please no—“

“He’s panicking. Tim—“

“I’ve got it. Just stay there.”

Every color around him a blur; every breath a gasping heave. The rushing of his own heartbeat in his ears drowns out everything else around him; all except that beeping, so fast too fast too fast, Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon—

“Martin? Hey, listen to me—“

No he bloody well won’t, not when Jon is dying and Tim is holding him back—

“Stop. Listen to me. He’s not in danger, mate. They’ve got him.”

Who’s got him? Who took him don’t take him don’t make me leave—

“He’s on the nebulizer, Martin. That’s all he needed. Hey, look at me.”

…what?

“Don’t make me put you on one too.”

The pounding, pounding, pounding of the blood in his ears lessening gradually, Martin begins to hear the sound of his own breathing—rapid, shallow, gasping. Slow down, he needs to slow it—stars dance in his vision when he opens his eyes, and he knows he needs to be getting more air if he wants to avoid passing out.

Don’t leave him don’t leave him you promised

Breathe. Breathe. In-2-3-4, out-2-3-4. In—

“Good, mate. You’re doing good.”

Such platitudes—undeserved though they are—settle something in Martin’s chest, allowing his hearing to further come back to him. The beeping is still here, of course. It never leaves, and feels like it may never leave again. But it is slower, much steadier, much more even. No alarms.

Just the man he loves in a hospital bed, his friend holding his hand.

And Martin breaks.

The levy of his mind holding back the encroaching tide bursts, and it all spills out in sobs he finds he can no longer control. God, Jon. God, Christ. Please. Please. I can’t lose you I can’t lose you—

“Habibi?”

His voice. Wrecked, wavering, strong. Full of a worry Martin knows he placed there with his silly little outburst.

You make everything worse you make him worse everything is better without you—

“Martin. Love, it’s…it’s alright.”

Still regaining his breath from the fit, Jon is forced to take a breath in the middle of his short sentence—but he sounds neither distressed, nor desperate, nor delirious. Just Jon. Just Jon. And Martin could never deny him anything.

“M’here, I’m coming.”

As he stands from where he seemingly collapsed on the floor, Tim holds his arms vaguely outstretched, as if afraid he might tip over. But no, Martin wouldn’t put anything else on him, not after he had caused the whole mess himself—and manages to make it back to his chair beside Jon’s bed. With no small amount of surprise, he finds that the nebulizer has already been replaced by the nasal cannula again—and though labored, Jon’s breathing is nowhere near distressed. No panic or glassiness to his eyes. Simply that gorgeous, deep brown cutting directly to Martin’s soul.

He cannot say why, but it makes his chest ache.

“Are you alright?”

Martin lets out a strangled sort of laugh at the question. “Are you?”

“Fine, love.”

“Stop that. I know you’re not.”

“I’m—I’m really okay now. Sorted.”

Tears swimming in his eyes, Martin looks away, shaking his head with fury and heartbreak. Can’t he see, he almost died? Can’t he see that everything was always on the line, constant, never-ending? It makes him sick; he’s going to be sick, I’m gonna be sick—

“Asthma attack, Martin. Added to the pneumonia. That’s all it was.”

“Oh, that’s all, is it, Tim?”

“Not what I meant.”

He’s picking a fight, he knows he is. Ready to swing at anyone; just as ready to take a hit. Tim should be fighting him back by now—he ought to be angry, the way he’s acting, come on let me have it I deserve it—

“Martin. Hayati. Look at me.”

All the anger slips out of his frame at his voice, along with the tears spilling over the edges of his eyes. Jon could always undo him like this at a mere word, it seems. One of the countless reasons to love him. One that is entirely too overwhelming in this moment.

“Sorry, m’sorry,” he half-sobs, pressing the bases of his palms to his eyes in protest to the leakage.

“Martin, please look at me.”

At last, he does so, meeting Jon’s wide and weary eyes, so filled with concern and hurt and love that Martin doesn’t deserve. Would never deserve.

“You need to…get some rest. Proper— ha, proper sleep.”

The hollow of his belly threatens to swallow him whole. Leave him; how could he leave him?

He wants me to leave him?

“Just—just rest darling,” he says tremulously, fidgeting aimlessly with Jon’s blankets and pillows. “Get your breath back—“

“No—listen. Please.”

And how could he deny him that? Jon’s trembling hand grasps his own—whether weakly or gently, Martin cannot be sure.

“Go h—home, Martin. Please. Need to—to rest.”

A half-sob escapes Martin’s chest unbidden on an exhale. “You rest, I’ll be just here, I’ll make sure no one bothers you—“

“No…no. Y—“ An exhausted, rattling cough escapes his chest, interrupts his thoughts for the moment. Long enough for Tim to brace his shoulder from the opposite side of the bed as he breaths shallowly, eyeing him closely. “You, Martin. You…”

He trails off again, eyes losing their sharpness in a wave of overwhelming weariness. It shatters Martin’s heart. Surely he hadn’t much left to shatter at this point.

“Jon?”

“M’sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. “Jus’ tired.”

“Sleep then, love. Just rest.”

“Sorry.”

“Hush, now. You’re alright.”

A mere few moment of Martin’s fingers carding through his hair is enough for Jon to sink deeper into sleep, head lolling against the pillow and expression going slack. And thank god for that, really, he’d been having such dreadful night terrors, and he hardly sleeps for longer than an half an hour, and he has to nearly sit up to breathe and he’s not comfortable and he’s so, so ill—

“I…think what he’s saying,” Sasha begins carefully, stepping around the bed to place a hand on Martin’s back, interrupting his spiral. “Is that you need to rest, Martin. He wants you to go home for the night.”

“So do we, mate,” Tim adds, a rare quietness to his voice that brings the bottomless well of tears springing back up in his eyes again. “You’re absolutely spent.”

Breathe, 2, 3, 4 —out, 2, 3, 4

Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes is not enough to stem the flow of his tears—hasn’t been for quite some time now. The mere thought of leaving Jon in this state is enough to set his heart racing. Or it would be, ordinarily, if it weren’t threatening to beat out of his chest near constantly for the past god-knows-how-many hours now. All of the sudden, Sasha’s hand on his back, moving slowly, comfortingly, is too much—christ, does he ache; his back and chest and neck and pounding, pounding head.

But he can’t. Can he?

“I feel—“ A gasping sob. “S-sorry. Sorry. I just c…can’t leave him. Won’t let him be alone.”

“I’m staying,” Tim states with intense finality. “You’re going. But I’m staying. He won’t be alone.”

“N-no, Tim—you can’t, your migraines—“

“I’ll be careful,” he assures. “Also? Couldn’t care less. You need to go home. And I need to be here.”

“But—“

“It’s okay, Martin.” Sasha crouches in front of his chair, setting a hand on his bouncing knee. “He’s safe. And he won’t be alone.”

“But what if—“

“Anything happens, and I call you,” says Tim. “I promise.”

God, my head.

“Come on, Martin.” He must have held the silence for too long, as the next thing he knows, Sasha is tugging him up from his bedside chair. “I’ll take you home.”

He puts up little resistance, and hates himself for it—but the moment he steps outside into the bracing cold, he feels nothing but relief. Jon is safe, in the hospital where he needs to be, in the company of a trusted friend. And so is he.

We’ll be alright, love. I really think we might just be alright.

#tma #tma fic #sickfic #whump #pneumonia #panic attacks #because what else do i ever write lol #i hope yall enjoy!

[let-it-rip-bear]

EHEHEHEH i've been writing on and off all day (stuck in court, did NOT get chosen as a juror) til i got home a few hours ago. now i'm hunkering down to do a final edit before posting chapter two of the pneumonia fic!!!

#my fics #update #jj.post #pneumonia fic

[allthewhumpygoodness]

Tonight (most nights honestly) I'm feeling a classic old-school sick whump scenario:

Someone has been feeling steadily more tired and run down as the days go by but they continue to go to work without missing a day. They're struggling with a steady dry cough that's getting more and more painful by the hour - but they ignore it, of course.

And then one day it gets a dozen times worse with barely a warning. They can hardly walk without feeling like they're about to pass out and they're shaking violently all day, aching all over. Every breath feels like their chest is on fire. By the time they get home after a long walk through icy air they're stumbling and shivering and seconds after walking through the door they collapse on the floor.

When [whoever they live with] hears them fall they're downstairs in a second, and the next thing the poor sick person knows they're wrapped up in six blankets and propped up in an armchair in front of a fire, yet still unable to stop shivering. They stay curled up in their nest for hours - maybe days - on end, coughing uncontrollably and occasionally being fed sips of warm broth, their feverish mind full of storms and clawing beasts and other horrors. Every time they think they're about to finally sleep properly they jerk awake from the constant soreness in their back and chest, or a nightmare that seemed all too real.

At some point somebody carries them into a proper bed, it's more comfortable but they're still coughing and shaking day and night. A doctor is called in, and after checking them over for what feels like an hour and diagnosing them with pneumonia in a serious tone, they're assailed with the bitter taste of medicine on their tongue, muffled voices explaining the future doses. The lights are too bright, their skin on fire yet too cold, they just want to sleep...

That night they spend drifting in and out of a restless sleep, only sometimes aware of the soft hands and damp cloths resting on their forehead. Day and night blurs together, present and past, until it's hard to know where they are at all. They see the faces of their friends, of past enemies and loves and family alike, of the doctor, all merging above them into one monstrous creature. Each breath is a knife through their lungs. It seems like they've never felt anything but this misery, and never will again.

#whump #sickfic #this is...more angsty and whumpy than comforty sorry #i wanted it to be cozier and have more comfort later but i'm tired and just needed to get it out as it is #old school pneumonia fic ftw #there's something so intimate and vulnerable and great about having to have the doctor come to their house instead of bringing them in i lo #ve it

[beesinspades]

i think i'm hitting a small writer's block.....i'm calling it small because I do want to write and I don't feel burned out over trigun but I just. can't focus for the life of me. even if I'm SO close to finishing the draft of the next chapter, even if I reaaally want to have at least two or three pieces for ace trigun week, even if I'm dying to start the one-shot I've been planning. I just struggle so hard. so I'd rather take it easy for a week or two or however long I need and give you something nice, especially for creechur fic, than force it.

maybe if my dumb brain makes peace with the fact I don't owe anyone fast updates, I'll try writing a little bit of that one-shot. maybe I need to work on something new on the side since it's been six months of creechur fic and my vashwood big bang exclusively. maybe my brain needs something fresh haha

#re: creechur fic i really appreciate your patience and everyone who's sticking around despite the long waits! #i think i'll stop saying 'i should update faster now!' because clearly i've jinxed myself sfbjkn #plus this past month has just been....A Lot #bad bad anxiety with everything and also my dad getting the flu which has turned into atypical pneumonia #or was pneumonia from the start #he's gonna be ok but #given my health anxiety this is Great I love living in fear of waking up with symptoms #why can that thing have such a long incubation period #also it's so hard to find clear info about when he'll stop being contagious #ugh #bee talks